The seals are scares and the whales are almost gone.
The spirits of the animals are passing away.
Amaroq, Amaroq, you are my adopted father.
My feet dance because of you.
My eyes see because of you.
My mind thinks because of you. And it thinks, on this thundering night,
That the hour of the wolf and the Eskimo is over.
Julie pointed her boots toward Kapugen. (3.263-64)
Well, there you have it. An awesome ending for an awesome novel. It's beautiful, of course, but that's not exactly the point. So what do we make of it? Where do we go from here?
The first thing we notice is that the narrator no longer calls our girl Miyax. She's Julie again. The hour of the Eskimo is over, Tornait, her last animal friend, has passed on, and there's nowhere to go but back to civilization.
Isn't that just the saddest? Our girl's got nowhere to go, and she sings a farewell song to everything she has lost: her adopted father, her last wild friend, the tundra itself. Plus, the father she thought she knew turns out to be a totally disappointing stranger. But she returns to Kapugen nevertheless. Let's face it girl, you've got nowhere else to go.
We don't know about you, but we don't have high hopes for Julie's happiness. Life in Kangik will be quite different from what she's used to. But you'll just have to read the sequel, Julie, to see how it goes.