Under The Northern Lights by Alan Sullivan

This is a tale of the year of the great sickness that came to the small brown people who live on the shores of Grant Island where it fringes the eastern borders of the Beaufort Sea. Of necessity such tales ate told simply, as one speaks to a child or to those who are very old, for they deal with those who walk carefully and are slow of speech. And the reason is that death is never very far away.

The North is a stern mother to the tribes that tenant her silent places. She feeds them for a time, then, perchance, starves them. She bakes them under a, torrid sun and, in a little while, strikes them with killing winds. She smiles across leagues of sunny waters that soon are hidden beneath endless fields of grinding ice. She dangles her purple Aurora in the zenith that all may see and marvel, but out of her unknown regions come roaring the storms that no man may face and live. So beneath her threats and caresses the brown people are what they are: brave, simple and uncomplaining; wistful, because they know not when the end may come; loving the slant-eyed children for whose safety they are ready to die; generous, because hunger is brother to all, and, when old age comes, facing the final great adventure with unquestioning fortitude and faith.