Surgery is speed and decision. A good surgeon saves his trembling till after he's killed the patient when it can do him no harm. - Alexander Knox

Like a revelation it came to him that it was far, far better to be an Eskimo; that these people didn't know their arse from a hole in the ground, that they had no business here, that his people had lived here and thrived for thousands of years and that they were the People. They were the People and all these were strangers with the habits of children, and they sulked like children because that's what they were. Old Ways were best!

How many would die this winter? There'd be a few more babies, but far more piles of stones. The Old Ways were a trap. The ceremonies and the rituals were pegs where living hangs suspended. Mad. Learn ancient, beautiful skills with spear and kayak in order to conquer impossible country, then struggle back to impossible country so you could use the skills you'd learned? Mad. Learn the skills to prove you're a man, and then to prove you're a man run, run, run to where you have to use the skills! Mad. ... To prove yourself a man. To whom? The million dead worked out these skills so they wouldn't die, but they did die, and the hissing of the Northern Lights was wry, accepting laughter. The million dead wouldn't be so foolish a second time.

The high Arctic had more snow that year than anyone remembered.