Miyax displays a fierce independence and frequently does not fit into the world around her. At the beginning of her story, she is set apart for losing first her mother and then her father. While she misses her parents, Miyax accepts her fate. She does not necessarily like the new ways of life that she encounters living with her Aunt Martha and then as a wife to Daniel, but she attempts to make it in those situations. Nevertheless, she does not fit in, such as when her supposed friends Judith and Rose “snickered” at her for mistaking a charm bracelet for an i’noGo tied, or Inuit totem (85).

Miyax believes she is better suited to traditional Inuit life, as she experienced with her father in the seal camp and elsewhere. Civilized life seems opposed to her basic values. Nevertheless, she sets the goal of traveling to live with her pen pal Amy in San Francisco. This decision is naïve and not well thought out, because Miyax would undoubtedly be unsatisfied with the civilized, urban life she would find in San Francisco. On the other hand, her decision to try and make such a long journey implies how important it is to her that she escapes the life she hates with Daniel, Naka, and Nusan.