How we cite our quotes: (Part.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Slowly the life-giving star arose until it was round and burning red in the sky. […] For an hour and a half the sun moved above the horizon, reminding the Eskimos that the birds and mammals would come back, that the snow would melt, and that the great ice pack that pressed against the shore would begin to retreat and set them free to hunt and fish. (2.109-10)
Never is the relationship between man and nature more clear in the novel than when it talks about the sun. The sun is the very reason that human life is possible in the Arctic, and that's a hard thing to forget during those long, dark winters.
Quote #8
The old Eskimos were scientists too. By using the plants, animals, and temperature, they had changed the harsh Arctic into a home, a feat as incredible as sending rockets to the moon. […] They had been wise. They had adjusted to nature instead of to man-made gadgets. (3.46)
Miyax thinks it's wiser to adjust to nature, rather than to try to make nature adjust to man. It's this philosophy that gets her through her tough time on the tundra, with minimal supplies and virtually no food.
Quote #9
Kapugen considered the bounty the gussaks' way of deciding that the amaroqs could not live on this earth anymore. "And no men have that right, [… The wolves'] passing will end smaller lives upon which even man depends, whether he knows it or not, and the top of the world will pass into silence." (3.101)
The irony of this line is downright tragic. If Kapugen is so convinced that humans don't have a right to end wolves' lives, then why does he hunt them from an airplane at the end of the novel? What's up with that?