Arctic Adventure, Chapter Three

Aput went looking for food to store for the winter. He had plenty of meat for Blackie, Blizzard, Winter, Gold and his gyrfalcon, but not enough food for himself. He found a greylag goose nest and took out four of the six eggs. Then he found a cloudberry (berry) patch. He came across an arctic willow, picked the young shoots and scraped the lichen (edible plant similar to moss) of the trunk. Then he found a fir tree and picked some of the needles (fir, pine and spruce needles are edible, and they make good tea. They taste like citrus). When he came back he saw Gold lying down with four husky puppies, two male and two female. Aput remembered that Gold had been getting fatter lately, and that she must have been pregnant. One of the female puppies was red and white, the other female was grey and white, one of the males was completely black, and the last male one was piebald (white with a few large black spots). Aput named the red and white one Autumn, the grey and white one Silver, the black one Balto (after Balto, a black dog who many people believe is the bravest dog ever) and the piebald one