They put all the fishing nets into the sea and dropped the marker buoys.
For the next while, the wooden boat weaved between the ice floes, searching for any sign of seals.
Seals held an important place on the Inuit menu, almost as vital as pork is to the Chinese.
With global warming, the seal population in the waters near Kivalina had plummeted. The appearance of the Super Wolf Pack had also forced the reindeer herds to change their migration routes.
This made survival difficult for the residents of Kivalina, driving them to the point of requesting food aid from the state government.
They refueled the wooden boat for a second time, but there was still no sight of any seals.
Searching any longer would just be a waste of fuel. Fuel was expensive in Kivalina, with the price having risen to over nine US dollars a gallon.
Disheartened, Old Swan told his little grandson to pilot the boat back to where they had set the nets, planning to pull them in early and return to Kivalina.
