Charlie's 'Change In' The Snow Walker

677 Words2 Pages

The Snow Walker is set in the summer and winter of 1953. A bush pilot Charlie Halliday, brash ladies man and war veteran, is flying a routine job in the Queen Maude Gulf on the Arctic Ocean when he encounters a small band of Inuit people who plead for his help and they want Halliday to fly her to a hospital. At first he refuses, but when they offer him a bribe of two beautiful walrus tusks, he reluctantly agrees. He is an ignorant racist, not because he is overtly malicious, but stupidly because he does not know any better and is too lazy to change. This World War II veteran fancies himself as a man's man, and he is also a sexist lout, we get the sense that his “girl in every port” lifestyle is driven by a “you only live once” attitude. But …show more content…

He thinks he can survive on his own in the wilderness and foolishly decides going to hoof it all the way himself, and promising the woman he will return with help. Luckily Kanaalaq despite her weakened condition follows him, or he'd have died from the adverse conditions of the natural dangers and severe exertion. One morning he awakens surrounded by a storm of mosquitoes, which force him to flee shoeless across the jagged rocks before collapsing. Kanaalaq appears above him and begins treating his wounds and bites with mud and grass. She feeds him and mends his clothes. Gradually, Charlie regains his strength and is healed through Kanaalaq's patient care. It is only after all this happens that he bothers to learn that she is called Kanaalaq. Slowly, he learns to connect with this young woman in a way that he has never connected with anyone. He learns to appreciate her, discovering that she is beautiful both inside and out. Through his relationship with Kanaalaq, whom he begins to regard as a little sister, he learns how to love another human being, becoming reborn as a better person in the process. He also learns to connect to the land and, in doing so, finds the strength to survive his ordeal. Kanaalaq ends up giving Charlie Halliday the gift of

Open Document