Dogsong

Oogruk is introduced in Chapter 1 as “old Oogruk,” the only person in the village who still has a dog team. According to Oogruk, he and four friends made the village many years ago:

When I was a young man I came down this coast in a umiak with four other men. We had some trouble back in a village up north and we came down to make this village. After we found meat we went to get wives and we made this place where we are now (27).

By the time Russel meets Oogruk, Oogruk is blind and old (his exact age is never revealed), and he still lives in the old traditional Inuit way, eschewing electricity other modern conveniences. His house smells of skins and seal oil, and a layer of smoke coats everything. Oogruk has white hair darkened by smoke and wears nothing but a loincloth in his house. He enjoys company but because of his way of living doesn’t get many visitors. Russel brings Oogruk caribou heads as a gift, and Oogruk eats the eyes as a delicacy—common in old times. He has old but beautifully maintained hunting weapons and a traditionally made sled. Oogruk is the last thread connecting the village to the traditional Inuit ways, but few people seem interested in learning from him. Russel’s father describes Oogruk as “old and sometimes wise and he also tells good stories,” (10) adding, “if you listen to Oogruk’s words, sometimes they don’t make sense. But if you listen to his song, there is much to learn from Oogruk” (11).

Oogruk is happy that Russel has come to learn from him and is a kind and patient mentor. In addition to educating Russel about the land, animals, and hunting, Oogruk shares his experiences of life before the white missionaries came, recounting, “there were good fish here and much game. And so it was a good place and we had good food and good songs. Everybody had a song then and that song was just for that person. That’s how it was” (27). Oogruk holds the white missionaries responsible for killing the Inuit tradition of song and dance. Despite his negative feeling towards the white men, Oogruk is a gentle human, with a profound understanding of, and respect for, the natural world around him and the power of thought. Oogruk and Russel develop a strong bond, one that goes even beyond death, with Russel able to spiritually access Oogruk’s advice after Oogruk has died. Paulsen gives the sense that Oogruk has been waiting for a boy like Russel to enter his life so he can pass on his knowledge and do his part to resurrect the Inuit belief in an individual and their song. Oogruk understands the rhythm of nature and is in tune with his place in it. Once he has passed on all his knowledge and has given Russel his final direction to “not go home” (72), he says, “An old man knows when death is coming and he should be left to his own on it. You will leave me here on the ice” (72).

Russel’s father has lived alone with Russel since his wife left him for a white trapper years ago. Russel’s father is a devout Christian, having been introduced to Jesus by visiting white missionaries. He used to be an alcoholic, but religion helped him overcome his excessive drinking. His addiction to alcohol was quickly replaced by smoking cigarettes, also brought by the white men, and now Russel’s father is a chain-smoker. He “rolled them with Prince Albert tobacco, and had one hanging on his lip late into the night. In the morning he had to cough the cigarettes up” (4). He has a persistent hacking cough, which doesn’t worry him. However, he does worry now about the traditional Inuit ways of eating raw meat. The missionaries taught them that raw meat is bad: “There are small things in meat to make you sick. Small worms and bugs. When you cook the meat more it kills them” (8).

Russel’s father has fully embraced the teaching and imports from the white men; he receives religious magazines, orders things for the house like a rose-patterned tablecloth, and turns to Jesus for answers rather than to his Inuit instinct and knowledge, which is fading. Despite his weaknesses Russel’s father is a good man. He loves Russel and does not pressure him to adopt the new ways or to turn to Christianity. It is Russel’s father who suggests that Russel visit Oogruk for answers, admitting that he lacks the knowledge to help him, and he fully supports Russel moving in with Oogruk to learn the old ways. Russel’s father is an example of the insidious change that is happening in the Inuit villages, a gradual shift towards outside teachings, and a neglect and dismissal of traditional ways.

Nancy is found by Russel, nearly dead, in Chapter 12, but she first appears to him in a dream in Chapter 7: “On the other side of the lamp sat a woman, young, round and shining beautiful. She was fat and had eaten of the meat but was done now and worked at tending the lamp” (92).

Nancy is described as a woman-girl, likely in her late teens. She is an orphan, having been raised in a settlement by strict missionaries. She is unmarried and became pregnant by mistake—a terrible sin according to the missionaries. The rejection and persecution she subsequently endures drive her to attempt suicide by taking a one-way trip into the tundra. However, her natural survival instincts kick in, so turns back. Nancy explains this to Russel but quickly corrects him when he says, “You became afraid and tried to get home,” by saying, “Not home […] Back. I have no home” (149), underscoring the alienation she felt in the settlement. Nancy, treated like a pariah in her own land, has no affection for the missionaries or the settlement and would rather die than leave Russel and return there. She is shy, thoughtful, and willing to learn how to work with the dogs. Despite the trauma she has suffered back at her settlement, she trusts Russel and forms a deep attachment to him. Nancy, like Russel, has strong survival instincts, shown again when suffers through the difficult delivery of her stillborn baby.

She shows an appreciation and understanding of the old ways and is proud of Russel and his dogs in the same way Russel’s dream-woman is. In Russel’s song, “Dogsong,” it is intimated that Nancy and Russel end up married with children, living the old way with their dogs. Nancy completes her journey of self-discovery and reconnects with her roots, reclaiming her life and tradition.