C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

40 THE LADIES, THE GWICH'IN, AND THE RATof spaciousness in such a country can take complete possession of a man, transmittingall his energy into that most haunting and insistent of desires, "horizonfever." Yet it can also bring him satisfaction and peace, for here, free from manmadebarriers, he can embrace north, south, east and west in a glance and hefeels as ifhe had gained in stature.Nearer and nearer we drew to that marsh land where the Mackenzie Riverissues from Great Slave Lake and there, amid unnumbered shoals and islets, wereducks and loons and waders dotted on the water. We were coming back again intothe world of solid forms. Meanwhile the Mother Superior of the Grey Nuns ofthe North, who was travelling to Aklavik to inspect a convent, had come on deck.She sat down, in her dove-gray dress and winged black coif, and when she hadfInished her morning meditation I joined her and we talked of many things andcallings and places, Then she fell into a long silence and a little later she saidquietly: "I love to look out on these spaces and feel the power of God." Mter thatshe folded her hands and fell into meditation again. I sat beside her, sharing hersilence.Just then the man from Arizona came sauntering past us. He did not utter aword yet I seemed to hear him murmuring again to himself: "Isn't this just thequietest water you ever saw." Yet the expression on his face was unchanged.On each one of us, the great space of the North had laid its touch; on trapper,priest and tourist, clerk and trader, missionary and squaw; on those who soughtfor gold; on those who travelled to fulfIl appointed duties; on those who travelledwithout purpose or desire. We were all drifting onward together, for the momentdisembodied of our usual selves-onward, onward in the magic stillness of theNorth.