The man could not remember how many days he'd been lost or how long ago he'd stepped out of a car at Coldfoot, a truck stop on Alaska's James W. Dalton Highway, and begun hiking northwest. The sole of one of his shoes had fallen off. He'd been out of food for days and lost most of his clothes. He did not recognize the wide, treeless valleys and rugged mountains around him, even though they were his people's home.

He was Nunamiut, an inland Eskimo, a Brooks Range man, a caribou person. Nunamiut legends tell that they have lived in the Brooks Range since the beginning of time. They moved across the land in small bands, hunting, fishing, and gathering. Nearly every creek and mountain in the Central Brooks Range has a Nunamiut name and story behind it. Anaktuvuk Pass, the village he was born in and the destination he sought, was the "place of caribou droppings." It had been nearly two decades since he'd left his village—a tiny grid of plywood walls, tin roofs, and satellite dishes, nestled between mountains where the John and Anaktuvuk Rivers begin—for the frontier city of Fairbanks. If he made it home now, he planned to sell the drugs he was carrying and stay for good.

I ran into him on my fourth day of a 750-mile traverse of the Brooks Range, the northernmost mountain range in Alaska. Watching his small, ragged form limping along a creek bank, I wondered if he was a ghost. Somehow, that made more sense than meeting another person in this wilderness. His soiled blue jeans were torn, and his holey, sweat-stained T-shirt offered little protection against the cold. He didn't seem to mind that my legs were bare: I had to ford rivers so frequently, I'd given up wearing pants.

I passed him my hat, an extra fleece jacket, and a pile of candy bars as he muttered "Thank God" over and over. He devoured the candy, throwing wrappers in the creek, and then asked how to get to Anaktuvuk Pass, where I happened to be walking myself. 

"It's that way, maybe 40 miles or so," I said, pointing away from where he'd been heading. "You can walk with me."

We hiked up the drainage, our sore feet grinding atop shifting rocks. At our second creek crossing, I suggested he leave his pants off to save time. He looked at me strangely, then laughed. Soon we were walking up a canyon in our underwear, toward a lonesome sweep of gray and black mountains.

In the late evening, after climbing a steep pass and crossing the Continental Divide, we sat near the headwaters of Graylime Creek, close to a small fire, looking over a dreamlike expanse of mountains, valleys, and sky. "I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't found me," he said. "Guess I just would have walked back to Fairbanks."

"You would have been fine," I lied.

The fire burned brighter as he heaped another armload of dry willows atop the flames. He pulled out a Nalgene bottle stuffed with marijuana, tore off a rectangle from my map, and rolled a generous joint. We shared a dinner of candy bars, crackers, and Tang, speaking of the land—its animals and people. Although he hadn't encountered any bears, he was horrified by them. He nearly always had bear spray in his hands, with the safety off. Before we turned in for the night, he said, "I hope they're looking for me. Tired of walking. Too far. Too many bears."

The following afternoon, two Nunamiut men on four-wheelers drove up the wide tussock-covered valley. They hugged my companion, loaded a pipe, and took a few tokes to celebrate his safety. Using Nunamiut words, they spoke of grizzly bears, caribou, Dall sheep, and wolves. Both had semiautomatic assault rifles strapped to their backs.

"You want some caribou?" they asked, pulling out a plastic grocery bag full of boiled, gamy meat. I thanked them and took it. The lost man climbed onto the back of a four-wheeler and was about to drive away when I asked for my hat and jacket back. I had more than a month of traveling before I'd reach the Chukchi Sea, the end of my journey. I would meet freezing temperatures more than once. After our unceremonious goodbye, I sat on a tussock in a humming cloud of mosquitoes, ravenously eating my caribou. A feeling of loneliness came over me but passed a moment later when I felt the meat's energy. The drone of the four-wheelers faded into silence as the three men dissolved into the wind-swept tundra. Jagged gray mountains rose into darkening clouds. Slowly, I became aware of pulsations in my chest and ears. It was as if the land possessed a giant beating heart that could only be heard in solitude and stillness.