Fir Afkihiliiiiiii and the lakroozle

Guess what. 

Turns out the ice wolves are have taken an interest in my blog. They’ve agreed to let me travel with them, on condition that they get some publicity from it. I don’t want to get on their wrong side, so I’m taking this opportunity to make a post while we’ve stopped for a meal of seal blubber and roots. 

Here is an account of my day yesterday. After hours on the back of the chief ice wolf (they have a tribal hierarchy, and are polygamous) we came across an old wooden dwelling.

Turns out the inhabitant is a musician! However, not using anything that you would recognise as an instrument if you weren’t in the know. But I’m jumping ahead. Let me get back to telling the story. 
On the ride there the chief ice wolf informed me of the situation, that the old man has a sensitive ego and is a sucker for compliments, and that on no terms must I show anything less than dumbfounded reverence when he breaks out in Inuit rap and plays the lakroozle. (I was impressed with their ability to speak English, by the way. They told me that they picked it up from watching The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.) 

When we arrived at the cabin, the ice wolf chief instructed that I was to lie on my stomach outside the door and pound my fists on the snow to the beat of Snoop Dogg’s “Who Am I (What’s My Name)” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2soGJXQAQec to which the old man would come out and yell “My name izz Fir Afkihiliiiiiii!!!!!”. This ritual is to show respect. 

I did this, and sure enough by the time I got to the chorus the door opened with a flourish and a wild eyed, grizzled old man proceeded to yell his name out into the barren landscape while jumping erratically from leg to leg. It was quite a sight! He then invited us in for fish-and-butter tea, which I obviously was in no position to decline. 
The chief ice wolf and I (I still don’t know his name, he goes by ‘Chief’ – apparently knowing the name of an ice wolf is like having the key to the treasure chest in which they keep their deepest secrets) went into the cabin. The rest of the pack obediently stayed outside and beat boxed. We sat on upturned coffee tins and politely complimented him on the architecture of the cabin while he lit the stove and began warming up the tea. After tea he scuttled into the back room and returned with what I was to learn was a lakroozle. It is crafted from the tail bone of a 100 year old shark, polished with seal fat and covered with reindeer bells and snow hare tails. Fir Afkihiliiiiiii began laying down a beat, accompanied by drumming on the shark bones, and not long after, the Inuit rap began. Chief’s heeding to show nothing less than dumbfounded reverence was unnecessary, as I was genuinely dumbfounded. Before I knew it, my feet were tapping in time to the reindeer bells and I was chuckling to myself as he gleefully buried his face in the snow hare hails. As he began to froth at the mouth and his eyes darted around faster and faster the chief ice wolf gave me a serious nudge and indicated THAT IT WAS TIME TO LEAVE, ASAP.

We darted to the door and made a hasty escape. Fir Afkihiliiiiiii was in such a deep trance that he didn’t even notice, thank god. 

I’m travelling South now, still with the ice wolves. I’ll keep you posted about what unfolds next. Chief says that I’ll be back in a town when the silver moon crosses the Big Dog in the Sky, which I don’t really understand but think is soon.