Sleet beats against my parka. No more whaling: banned by those whose ancestors slaughtered bowheads to light the lamps of Boston.

Above, Rapallo-chuted, thermal-suited, oxygen-tanked daredevils crisscross the aurora, surfing the dancing green-gold: Tourists riding boards among colors of my soul.

I stab my harpoon into shelf-ice and walk away.

In 1997, George Guthridge and friend, the late Janet Berliner of South Africa, won the Bram Stoker Award for the Year’s Best Horror Novel. His short fiction has three times been a finalist for the Nebula and Hugo Awards for science fiction and fantasy, and he has won multiple awards for screenwriting. He is Professor Emeritus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where for 25 years he trained teachers in teaching writing to Alaska Natives. He lived for several years in a Siberian-Yupik village on a blizzard-swept island off the coast of Siberia.