I think I am falling for the north, and I am not sure when it started. It could have been when I noticed people saying hello to me in the COOP. It could have been the night I was out walking with the nurses, and we stumbled across an Arctic fox in a leg trap. One wrestled with the trap while trying to evade the fox's piranha-like teeth, and the other nurse and I tried to restrain the husky who had joined us and keep a look out for the returning trapper. In theory I have always agreed with the notion of not interfering with another culture's ways of living, but that was until the fox looked me in the eyes.
Two days later, under a brilliant blue sky, the nurse drove me up to the crest of a hill overlooking the sea and the town, to point out wolf tracks in the snow. We then turned and faced south across the tundra, and he pointed out "polar bear alley", where the cuddly killers walk from one fishing place to another. This alley runs behind the town airport, where in the summer time I frequently walked alone. Not now.