Kapu Character Analysis

Kapu is one of Amaroq and Silver’s wolf pups. In addition to being the first wolf to approach Miyax, Kapu is also the wolf with whom Miyax shares the closest bond. Kapu’s bravery prompts Miyax to name him after her father, Kapugen. In Kapu, Miyax also sees her father’s innate ability to lead, and she predicts (correctly) that Kapu will one day be the leader of the pack. In Miyax’s Inuit culture, people have “joking partners,” or people with whom they have fun, and “serious partners,” or people with whom they work. Miyax decides that she and Kapu are “joking-serious partners,” fulfilling both roles for each other. Although Miyax and Kapu play together, they also look after each other. For instance, Kapu brings Miyax a leg of caribou when she needs food, and Miyax tends to Kapu’s wounds after gussak hunters shoot and severely injure him. After hunters kill Amaroq, Kapu becomes the leader of his wolf pack. At the end of the novel, Miyax makes the painful decision to leave Kapu and the other wolves to go to “[her] own Amaroq,” abandoning the love and acceptance she found among the wolves for an uncertain future with Kapugen in the village of Kangik.