The Intrepid Canadian Expedition (2 page)

When Stanley and Nick arrived at the course, they noticed that most of the crowd was huddled near the bottom of the run. “The wind’s picked up,” said Nick. “It’ll make for some fantastic boarding. But I wish we could get to the top to watch.”

“Stay behind me and we’ll fly right up,” Stanley told Nick. With the wind at his back, Stanley towed his new friend to the start line.

“Thanks!” said Nick. “We’ll have the best view in the place!”

The competition began and Nick was right—the conditions were perfect for some astonishing snowboarding.

“Did you see that fellow? That was an epic jump!” Nick said.

“You sure know a lot about this,” Stanley said admiringly. “You must be really good.”

“I’m better than good!” Nick bragged. He looked longingly down the trail. “In fact, if only I had my snowboard, I’d
show them a thing or two….”

Stanley grinned. “Well, there are some things I’m really good at, too….” Then he stiffened, perfectly straight, with his arms at his side. “What do you think?”

Nick got the idea at once, but he smirked. “Are you serious? I only use the best boards! Very expensive…like the pros!”

“Oh, come on, let’s try it,” Stanley urged.

Nick rolled his eyes. “All right. Let’s go!”

The boys edged their
way to a spot alongside the starting gate. Nick pulled on his goggles. “Ready?”

Stanley lay down in the snow and wrapped his scarf around his middle for foot bindings. “Ready!”

Nick jumped on top of him, and the starting gun went off. The boys shot down the slope, parallel to the other snowboarders. Nick called out commands, and Stanley positioned himself accordingly.

They made quite a team.

They started on course, weaving through packs of snowboarders as they fired over some moguls. “Are we in control?” Nick asked.

“I think so,” Stanley replied as they
approached a ten-foot kicker jump.

“I hope so!” Nick hollered as they accelerated through the kicker, getting enormous air. The view from thirty feet above the slope was spectacular, peaceful, and still. Stanley caught a snowflake on his tongue, and then Nick said, “Stanley, we’re going down now!” It was time for the landing, something that neither Nick nor Stanley had considered until that moment. They braced themselves for a rough impact, pleased when they glided gently into some thick powder, skidding away in a wake of snow. “That wasn’t so bad,” Stanley reflected.

“Stanley! Stanley!” Nick was pointing
ahead, trying his best to keep Stanley on course as they veered off the trail and into the woods!

“Look, a jib!” Nick said. He guided them toward a fallen tree where snowboarders were sliding over the trunk. They glided up and over the length of the log, spinning as onlookers admired their flair. “Wheeeeeee!” Stanley and Nick shouted together. They landed and sped back to the course, going faster than ever.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it seems we have a new challenger!” shouted the sports announcer. “And he’s giving the professionals some competition!”

The wind blew even stronger now.
“I’m going to cut you into it now,” Nick told Stanley. “If we can catch a current, I bet we can kill it!”

“Are you sure?” called out Stanley. “We’re going higher than anyone else already!”

“That’s just where I
should
be!” yelled Nick. “Bombs away!”

Stanley strained upward to catch the wind, remembering what he’d learned when Arthur had flown him like a kite. Up and up he went, while Nick crouched to hold on to Stanley with one hand. The crowd below roared in delight. Even the other snowboarders, finished with the run now, cheered in awe.

Stanley realized the problem first. “I can’t come down!” he yelled to Nick. “I’ve caught the current, and I can’t get out of it!”

Nick shouted, “No way, dude! I’ve got it under control.” He tried to guide the Stanley-board down, but it was no use…. Suddenly, an even stronger gust of wind flipped them completely over. “Grab my hands and feet!” Stanley called to Nick.

Nick did, just in time, and Stanley allowed himself to billow in the wind like a parasail. The boys floated even higher over the course.

Far down below in the crowd, Stanley caught sight of his father, standing with
Doctor Dave, looking very worried.

“We’re going to fall!” Nick screamed.

Both fathers gestured wildly with puzzled looks.

“No, we’re not,” Stanley tried to assure Nick. “Just don’t let go!”

But Nick was panicking. “We’re going
to fall!” he screamed even louder down to the dads.
“We’re going to fall!”

“No, not unless the wind were to stop all of a sudden,” Stanley told Nick. “I’m not shaped for skiing anymore, but I’m just right for riding the air currents. Just hold on tight until the wind dies down, all right?”

Nick remained nervous, but he held tight. Up so high, it was curiously quiet, in spite of the wind.

Stanley decided to take Nick’s mind off the situation by chatting. “My family is going to a wedding next week. It’s somewhere near the Canadian border, so we decided to get a ski vacation in before it.”

“That’s nothing,” Nick said. “I’m the ring bearer for a wedding next week!”

“We had a hot chocolate party at the lodge last night,” Stanley tried.

“I drank four mugs yesterday,” said Nick. “With extra marshmallows!”

“Then we watched a good show—about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”

“I’ve seen every episode,” Nick bragged.

No matter what Stanley mentioned, Nick had done it better, faster, or more times.

Stanley began to feel a little discouraged, but he kept talking all afternoon because it was working—Nick was relaxing.

As the sky darkened, the two boys grew tired. “You sleep a little first,” Stanley offered. “One of us should always stay awake in case we come down.”

Stanley steered them over the darkening mountains for a few hours as Nick dozed, then when the moon rose, Nick awoke and let Stanley close his eyes.

Stanley would have preferred to have his pillow and warm blankets at the lodge, with his brother in the next bed. But within minutes, he was sound asleep.

Stanley awoke to a poke in the ribs. The sun was shining brightly, and the wind had nearly stopped.

“We’re coming down!” Nick shouted. “Fast!”

Stanley looked down…. Nick was right! They were hurtling toward a frozen landscape at a dangerous speed.

“Three, two, one…Roll!” Stanley cried. He arched his back even more—like a parachute—and they crashed softly to the ground, tumbling head over heels through snow and brush.

When they gathered themselves enough to sit up, they were stunned to find a man in a coat with a huge fur collar towering over them.

“An
Eskimo
!” Nick breathed.

“That’s
Inuit
,” the man corrected him, smiling.

“We’re native people. I am Tulugaq.” He extended one hand to each boy and pulled them to their feet easily. Beside them, a furry dog was yapping and dancing around.

“This is Amarok. It means ‘wolf,’ but he’s very friendly. He watched you fall from the sky…. He’s never seen birds as big as you!”

Nick straightened up. “I’m bigger than he is!”

Tulugaq frowned a little. “Well, no matter, you both look half frozen—follow me.”

Nick and Stanley followed the Inuit man across the frozen tundra and into a little wooden house.

“Hey—you don’t live in an igloo?” Nick asked.

Tulugaq rolled his eyes and laughed a hearty laugh. “There is a lot you don’t know about my culture,” the man said.
“Come inside and you will see that we are very modern.”

Inside the house, Stanley and Nick were grateful to warm themselves by a roaring fire. Tulugaq introduced the boys to his wife, his grandmother, and half a dozen children who were scampering about, passing around bowls of caribou stew. The boys ate as Tulugaq told stories about his people.

Then, everyone was eager to hear the story of how Nick and Stanley had arrived.

“You traveled so far!” Tulugaq’s grandmother marveled. “You floated right over the Rocky Mountains and into the Northwest Territories!”

“I steered,” boasted Nick.

Tulugaq’s wife patted Stanley’s hand. “Your family must be very worried. Here, use our phone to call them, to let them know you are safe.”

Stanley called the ski resort, eager to hear his parents’ voices and to tell Arthur all about his adventure. “I’m sorry,” the receptionist said. “The Lambchop family checked out yesterday.”

Nick grabbed the phone. “How about my family? Connect me to Doctor Dave’s room—it’s the VIP suite!”

“Sorry,” said the receptionist. “Doctor Dave and his party checked out yesterday also.”

Stanley and Nick were too stunned to speak.

Tulugaq turned to his wife and said something in Inuit. Then he put his hand on Stanley’s shoulder. “We must visit the shaman now. Come.”

Stanley and Nick left with Tulugaq, still quite upset. Why would their families have left without them? And where could they have gone?

“The shaman is wise,” Tulugaq told them as they traveled across the village. “He will have an answer.”

But Nick and Stanley were not reassured. In fact, they were so worried, they barely even noticed that they traveled over a frozen river
on a bridge of ice.
Where were their families?

At last they came to a small, ancient hut. Tulugaq ducked inside and waved for the boys to follow him. In the dim light from an oil lamp, the boys could see that the walls were hung with animal furs and weavings and ancient artifacts.

Suddenly, one of the furs—huge, and with a monstrous mask on top—leaped to life and came straight for them!

The monster pulled off his mask to reveal…a very tiny, very wrinkled old Inuit man. He hugged Tulugaq and the two spoke for a moment in their language. Then Tulugaq pointed to the
boys and the old shaman turned. His eyes widened when he saw Stanley’s shape. He walked all around him, eyeing him closely from all angles. The shaman seemed so impressed and respectful that Stanley didn’t feel a bit embarrassed by all the curiosity.

Next the shaman handed a skin drum to Tulugaq. Tulugaq began to beat it, and the shaman began to chant and dance around the room. Faster and faster he whirled, almost as if he was in a trance.

Finally he spun to a stop and seemed to come back to himself. He smiled broadly, without a tooth in his head,
and said something to Tulugaq.

“He says you boys are going to make a great journey together,” Tulugaq translated. “You will go to the great falling waters. There, something will happen that will bond you to each other for life. Like brothers!”

“The great falling waters?” asked Nick. “Where’s that?”

The shaman reached into a pouch he wore around his neck and pulled out a worn and creased postcard. He showed it to the boys.

“Niagara Falls!” Stanley cried. “I’ve heard of that! But how far away is it?”

“Near Toronto, in Ontario. Many
miles away,” answered Tulugaq. “Thousands. Canada is a very large country.”

Stanley and Nick exchanged looks—two boys on foot with no money could never travel that far.

Later that night, after a satisfying meal of dried fish and boiled walrus, the boys sat on the steps outside Tulugaq’s home.

“Normally, I would just mail myself home,” Stanley said. “But I don’t think I should leave you here.”

Nick nodded. “Besides,” he said, “we don’t know that there’d be anyone at our homes when we got there.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Stanley said. “The shaman said we were supposed to make the journey together. Tulugaq says there’s a dogsled to Calgary, where his cousin lives, but that’s just a short part of the trip….”

Both boys fell silent then, looking down at the frozen ground, discouraged.

After a while, though, Stanley—not being the kind of boy to give in to discouragement—looked up.

And then he gasped in disbelief! The night sky was shimmering with iridescent lights—neon greens and pinks and yellows danced across the entire horizon!

“The northern lights, Nick!” Stanley said at last. “It’s a sign. If the whole sky can light up like that, I guess you and I can make our way to Niagara Falls somehow!”

Nick and Stanley shook hands. “We’ll do it,” they declared. “Like brothers!”