Free Coppermine by Keith Ross Leckie

struggled to point the boat back on course, thirty degrees off the line of the swell. Each wave took a lot out of him and he did a survey of his stiff, frozen muscles wrestling with the paddle. For the first time he wondered if he had the stamina to ride out this storm all night. He wasn’t sure.
    The first wave that broke over the gunnels deposited a pailful of water. The added weight held the canoe down, and on the next wave the same thing happened again.
    “Bail!” Creed called out to the boy. He heard him fumbling in the cooking wanigan and the bumping of a pot against the ribs of the canoe as he did as he was told.
    They rode out two more big ones. In the blackness he could only judge the coming break by sound and rhythm. The wind whined in his ears like incoming German .77 rounds. Over the sound of the waves he heard thunder, and a second later the world was illuminated with a flash of vibrant, crackling white light. It revealed that the water in the canoe was deeper than he had thought, and the boy’s blue eyes looked up at him in fear as he bailed for their lives. Then all was blackness again and they rode another big one, up and over, this time taking no water. But there was something else Creed thought he might have seen in the instant of total light, something breaking the distant horizon. Could have been dark clouds or his eyes playing tricks. He waited for the thunder, and when it came he watched where the horizon should be and sure enough, in the bright flash that followed, standing in black silhouette one hundred yards to the northwest, there it was.
    “Land!”
    The boy paused from his labours a moment to look. They stared into the darkness where the narrow slip of shoreline had now disappeared. Then came the biggest wave yet. Creed could not get the vessel turned in time. It hit them on the angle and there was nothing they could do. It swamped them, rolling them half over, the mast and sail in the water on the lee side and Creed and the boy with them. Creed jumped when he knew they were going over and he found himself under the canvas sail. The water was icy cold, and his heart pounded with shock as he fought his way to the surface only to be stopped by the spread of the canvas sail. He reached to his belt for his sheath knife but remembered it was in the pocket of his pack. He tried to swim to the edge but couldn’t force back the boom, which the hull of the canoe held tight against her side in the relentless wind.
    Another wave washed over them and the hull bounced hard off his head. The ice-cold water soaked his wool clothing under the oilskin, entered his boots, sapped his strength, and pulled him down. He tried to fight it, but he just needed a moment to rest. Despite the freezing embrace of the water it was good to be out of the wind. He’d just rest a moment in the darkness then find his way out from under the sail. He hoped the boy was all right. In a moment or two he’d try again.
    He heard the rip of canvas as a knife flashed down close to his face. He felt a sudden tug on his collar. Then he was floating up through the tatters of the sail, into fresh air and the howling wind. He gasped the rich, cold air into his lungs. He opened his eyes. The clouds were thinning and a pale but constant suggestion of moonlight now illuminated the little Peterborough, awash but still stubbornly afloat. Creed turned to see the boy, the knife in his teeth glinting in the faint light, looking very worried.
    Creed called to him. “I’m okay. We’ll get rid of the sail and paddle her in.”
    The boy nodded.
    Working together, they cut the stays of the makeshift mast and pulled it free of the supporting thwart. They retrieved and coiled most of the thick halyard, then let the mast, boom, and remnants of sail float free. They righted the canoe. The ties had held and all of their supplies, including their paddles, were still on board. Creed took his position on the windward side, Angituk on the lee, and they