Prairie Grass

by Joan Soggie

  But if I was learning anything this summer, it’s that you gotta use whatever you find. And to keep one eye on the weather. Today turned windy as only Saskatchewan winds can blow, and smoke was rolling in from a forest fire burning out of control somewhere hundreds of miles west. It seemed a perfect time to hunker down in the archives of the public library. Maybe talk to somebody at the museum.

  Although, with a name like Pioneer Museum, I didn’t expect to find much on the people who pre-dated the pioneers by hundreds of years.

  At the Truth and Reconciliation Hearing, I glimpsed the colonial oppression experienced by Indigenous tribes. But it raised more questions than it answered for me. What about that long period before colonialization? Had there ever been a time when the people of various tribes lived in some sort of balance with each other and the land? And when traders and explorers first made contact, had there been a brief time when tribes had the power to either rebuff or welcome newcomers, when newcomers had to adjust their own behavior to an aboriginal way of life? Andy had suggested that, when he said, “European traders couldn’t have gotten anywhere without their First Nation guides and hunters.”

  That was the period I needed to learn about. Some of those early adventurers must have kept journals or at least written reports. Those were the documents I needed to see, first-person accounts. Maybe I could see through the cultural bias of the writer to get a sense of pre-contact life. To get to The Truth. Whatever that was.

  First to the library, where I’d noticed a large section labelled Western Canadian History. The first thing I discovered was a sad paucity of original documents. I expanded my search to see what light archaeological investigation might cast on the pre-contact period. With several promising volumes stacked in my arms, I settled down at a table in the corner of the reading room.

  Before Europeans entered the picture, I learned that trade networks linked the people of the western plains. They traded amongst themselves for whatever goods they couldn’t obtain or make. Raiding an enemy band was one acceptable way to obtain items in short supply, but continuous warfare would have ensured mutual destruction. Before guns and horses entered the picture, attackers and defenders were pretty evenly matched.

  An archaeologist who specialized in pre-contact trade patterns described commerce in tools and ceremonial or decorative items made for and by women. It was apparent that a woman might barter her own pottery for decorative shells, or her cured bison skin for an obsidian knife. Women played an important role in the commerce between cultural groups, often obtaining goods from hundreds of miles away for the benefit of her family. Individuals reaped the benefits of their own labour and used those benefits to take care of everyone. Made me wonder if their society was possibly more just than our own.

  But the demands of the fur-trade changed the dynamics. Muskets and gunpowder could be obtained only from traders, and what white traders wanted was the product of women’s work: buffalo hides and pemmican and beaver pelts. Especially beaver pelts. A stretched and prepared beaver pelt, that is, one ‘made beaver’, became the currency of trade. And because preparation of skins was often women’s work, their labour was co-opted. It became apparent that, while their skill in preparing hides and pemmican was valued, sometimes the women were not.

  Well. That was interesting. And depressing. On the other hand, I couldn’t blame the Indigenous people for bowing to the pressure imposed by trade. Who wouldn’t want a gun to replace that bow and arrow, a steel hatchet to replace hard-to-use stone tools? One tribe couldn’t afford to let a rival group, competing for the same resources, become better armed than they were. Survival demanded they obtain those same weapons and tools.

  By now I was ready for a cup of coffee and a change of scene. A store-front lunch counter across the street from the library summoned me with the smell of fresh-baked bread. As I settled in to enjoy my vegan cream cheese sandwich on a sprouted-spelt loaf, I noticed a poster on the bulletin board by the door, advertising a talk that afternoon in a nearby bookstore. The Life and Times of Maskepetoon, the sign read. Biography of a Cree Peacemaker. Author talk and book launch, 2-4. The date was today.

  I could not believe my luck. The timing was perfect. I knew there had to be some good stuff hidden away in those old journals and travelogues so beloved by travellers of the 1800s. Even the most blinkered lackey of the Empire must have occasionally written about exceptional individuals he encountered. But how was I ever to find those accounts, stumbling blindly through volumes of 19th century verbosity? This book and this author might be precisely the shortcut I needed.

  Before committing myself to an afternoon of potential boredom at the bookstore, it seemed like a good plan to check out this author, Jeff Relleter, and his subject. A quick Google search told me the author was a popular historian and lecturer at the University of Regina. Back in the library, I picked up the fat volume I’d left on my table, the Canadian Dictionary of Biography, Volume One, and searched the index for that strange Indigenous name. There I found a him: a western Cree called Maskepetoon, or Broken Arm. His life had spanned most of the 19th century, just as Eric Tollerud’s spanned the 20th. And it seemed he had lived in approximately the same geographic area. I hoped their parallel stories might make an interesting contrast.

  The bookstore appeared almost empty when I hurried in a few minutes after two. In response to my “I’m here for the author reading,” the teenager at the counter pointed to the back of the store, where, beyond the bookshelves I could see what looked like a small café. At the tables sat a dozen or so people, facing a stocky dark-haired man who stood beside a woman I thought must be the bookstore manager. Although I doubted my expense account would cover the cost — $45 for this hardcover book — I had already made up my mind. I picked up The Life and Times of Maskepetoon, handed over my debit card, and sat down prepared to be informed.

  Jeff Relleter did not disappoint. Although he didn’t look more than a dozen years older than me, he must have totally immersed himself in the history he so obviously loved. His brown eyes radiated energy. His voice commanded complete attention. A few minutes was all it took to transport me back to the early 1800s and the world in which Maskepetoon grew up.

  It seems that Maskepetoon had first made a name for himself among the Cree as a fighter and a leader. The Blackfoot, traditional enemies of the Cree, showed their respect by naming him “Monegubanou”, Young Man Chief. Then as now, it seemed, exceptional people earned extra titles or nicknames. Exceptional this man was, by all accounts. A Methodist missionary described Maskepetoon as a “magnificent looking man physically, keen and intelligent.”

  But Relleter did not portray this man as the noble savage of European fiction. Far from it. According to one source, Relleter said, as he paced back and forth, Maskepetoon had scalped his own wife, Susewick. She may have survived this brutality, but if she had not, there would have been no penalty, unless her family chose to seek revenge.

  But when Maskepetoon came close to murdering a Métis during a drunken brawl, there were consequences. The Métis and his friends would most certainly have intended to even that score. It seems the young Cree chose that time to make an extended trip south, away from his people’s traditional land. Maybe he was running away from himself. Maybe he went looking for something. Whatever his motive, Broken Arm travelled far over the next few decades. And his travels changed him.

  According to Relleter, the timing of his travels corresponded with the opening of the northwest. If he had been ten years earlier, he would not have met anyone who recorded their meetings. But by the late 1820s, railroads and riverboats were bringing in a trickle of foreign tourists and artists and journalists. Some were destined to meet Maskepetoon.

  Jeff Relleter stopped talking long before I was ready to stop listening. It seemed the other listeners felt the same way. Although their numbers were underwhelming, the applause was enthusiastic. Many of the audience appeared to be old friends or acquaintances of the author. Conversations bubbled throughou
t the room as people left their seats and gathered by the table where the author was seated for book signing. An elderly man turned to me, introduced himself as Bill Longman and asked if I lived here. I was getting used to this kind of questioning. Although Swift Current is officially a city, long-time residents still have the small-town attitude that takes for granted any newcomer’s need for a little neighborly attention.

  “Sure is nice to see a young face at a talk like this. Are you a student? Do you know Jeff?”

  When I admitted I’d never heard of Jeff Relleter or Maskepetoon until today, he said, “Well, come on and meet the author. You want to get that book of yours signed.”

  It seemed that the customers and the author were in no hurry, and book signing was sporadic as conversation flourished. I hung back at the edge of the animated group until my new acquaintance appeared at Relleter’s side.

  “Jeff, you’re keeping this young lady waiting. This is Gabriella and she’s new here. You’d better sign her book.”

  The smile Jeff turned on me was electric. Within a few minutes, he learned my interest in his subject was the accidental byproduct of my work recording the personal stories of a few of the province’s centenarians, and that my previous familiarity with Western Canadian History was exactly nil. It did not dim the intensity of his gaze. He seemed to be one of those people who could make you feel as though you were the only one in the room. Usually that kind of attention makes me uncomfortable. But not this time.

  I dragged myself away with an airy wave and a promise to email him with any questions I might have.

  Outside, the wind and smoke had been replaced by a steady rain. It had turned into the kind of day that made golfers sulk and farmers smile.

  I smiled too. Jeff Reletter offered me not only facts, but an understanding of the spirit of the time. I felt as though I had gained another friend this afternoon. It would be no hardship to spend this evening immersed in his book, compiling a picture of the life and times of this character, Maskepetoon a.k.a. Broken Arm. I made myself a huge pot of tea, put a frozen pizza in the oven, and dived into the wild west.

  In 1828 the American Fur Company built a fort at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, near the Mandan villages that a few years earlier had still hosted annual aboriginal trade fairs. Maskepetoon’s people likely traded with the Mandan for generations. Anyway, he was there the summer of 1832, just as the first steamboat to reach Fort Union arrived. On board was one George Catlin, artist, adventurer, and self-appointed commentator on the Indians of the Plains.

  Not surprisingly, Catlin made a point of getting to know this young Cree chief. In his letters published in newspapers back east, Catlin referred to this “foremost and most renowned of Knisteneaux warriors” as “Bro-cas-sie”, a transliteration of the name he heard French-Canadian traders use. Bras Casse a.k.a. Broken Arm. Mandan of the Missouri had another name for Maskepetoon. They called him a complicated name meaning He-Who-Has-Eyes-Behind-Him. Catlin painted a portrait of him, which Jeff included in his book, as well as one of Tow-ee-ka-we, whom Catlin described as Maskepetoon’s wife, “a simple and comely-looking young woman.”

  Hmm. So, if the previous story of wife-scalping was correct, this must be his new wife. Poor girl. I hoped that “simple and comely” Tow-ee-ka-ee had other friends among the many people trading at Fort Union, for Maskepetoon left her there on her own for several months. This good-looking and clever brawler was about to embark on a new phase in his life. Maskepetoon met an agent of the United States government who invited him, as a leader of the Cree people, to accompany three other chiefs from the Assiniboine — that is, Nakoda — Saulteaux, and Sioux tribes to Washington, DC to meet President Andrew Jackson.

  It seemed President Jackson had a plan in mind for the tribes who were obstacles to settlement. To avoid further Indian trouble, he proposed moving them west of the Mississippi River. But first, it might be convenient to get the cooperation of native groups already occupying that land. If they were inclined to resist, he offered them a firsthand glimpse of the military power of the United States.

  I tried to imagine what that would have looked like from the point of view of a man accustomed to sporadic tribal warfare. War-party raids must have seemed like a kid’s game when compared to the unstoppable imperialistic expansion of American settlement that Maskepetoon witnessed on his 6000-mile journey from Fort Union to Washington, D.C. He was gone for a year. Up the Missouri River by steamboat. Across the continent by train. Through settlement after settlement and then town after town and on to the cities of the east. If Fort Union had amused him, with its glass windows and bell tower, its cannons and distillery, he must have been astounded at the strange contraptions and massive buildings, the swarming people and crushing assurance of American civilization unfolding before him.

  Whatever was discussed at that meeting between the Plains chiefs and President Jackson, underlying the pomp and pageantry would have been a clear message. Maskepetoon had already glimpsed the fate of tribes who had challenged the American military. He now saw the wealth and power behind this relentless push west.

  On his way home, Maskepetoon met a German Prince who, like him, had boarded the paddle steamer in St. Louis. Naturalist and ethnologist Prince Alexander Philip Maximilian had left the safety of European civilization to seek adventure in the wilds of North America. Maskepetoon was returning from a hostile civilization to the safety of his northern prairie home. Maximilian described Maskepetoon as he saw him, through the lens of his class and culture. I wondered how Maskepetoon would have described Maximilian, or any of the hundreds of other people he met on this strange journey.

  There was too much to take in at one reading. I put the book aside feeling both overwhelmed and stirred. Although Maskepetoon’s life was far from typical, he represented for me not only the Cree, but all the plains people of his generation. He would serve as my key to understanding pre-settlement history.

  Chapter Seven

  Crested wheatgrass. An introduced species, sometimes invasive. Medium to blue-green, distinctly veined blades. Wide spike with spikelets in comb-like arrangement diverging from both sides of the stalk. Dense bunchgrass with fibrous roots. Good forage. Gabriella’s Prairie Notes

  Gabby (2012)

  My chiming cell phone dragged me back to the 21st century. It was Mr. Tollerud’s daughter, Jo, calling.

  “I hope I didn’t wake you?” She sounded more surprised than apologetic.

  “Of course not,” I lied. “Just been working on the computer all morning.”

  Well, that was more or less true. It was long past midnight when I finally closed my laptop and turned onto my pillow. Now sunlight peered through the window blinds and I could already feel the promise of a fine summer day.

  Jo had called to invite me to meet with Mr. Tollerud’s younger brother whose son had brought him on their annual pilgrimage to revisit his brother and his childhood home. Jo explained that Derwood Tollerud was a WW2 veteran who’d made his career in the army serving as a radar technician. Although he’d spent a lifetime in the military, he still cherished his memories of growing up a country boy. He was able and willing to fill in details of their childhood Eric tended to dismiss as unimportant.

  This was, most definitely, an opportunity not to be missed.

  Derwood Tollerud sat beside his brother in the small visitor’s alcove down the hallway from Mr. Tollerud’s room. Their heads were turned towards each other in quiet conversation, showing two almost identical profiles. When the younger brother stood up, leaning unsteadily on his cane, I was struck instead by the vast difference in their demeanor. Where Mr. Tollerud – to avoid confusion, I will from here on refer to him as Eric – showed evidence even from a wheelchair of having been a tall and powerful man, Derwood’s frame was slight and inclined to softness rather than muscle. His complexion was pale, in contrast to Eric’s permanently weathered countenance. Where Eric gave the impression of someone used to being listened to, Derwood appear
ed to be the attentive, almost anxious, listener. Not my idea of the stereotypical military man, of whom I had met more than a few.

  After the usual pleasantries, Mr. Tollerud – Eric – declared he was tired and asked Jo to wheel him back to his room for a nap. One of the nursing home attendants, a pleasant Filipino woman, came by to offer Derwood and me coffee. We accepted with thanks.

  Derwood settled back into his easy chair, stirred two sugar lumps into the murky decaf in his cup and smiled at me. “You cannot think how glad I was to hear of this Centenarian Project of yours! My brother and all his – well, I guess I should say our – generation have seen more changes than any generation before us. Our memories hold bits and pieces that may not be important to the world at large. But by putting our experiences together, perhaps the big picture will become more understandable.”

  I liked this unassuming man. His years seemed to weigh lightly on him. I did a quick calculation and realized that, if I remembered the family outline correctly, this guy had to be at least 95. His experiences would, presumably, be much the same as Eric’s. I thought of one of the questions that Mr. Tollerud always avoided answering, and that I had been hesitant to press.

  “I know that Mr. Tollerud, your brother Eric, didn’t complete high school, and I guess that was pretty common for his generation. Would you mind my asking you some questions about your school years?”

  “Ask away!” Derwood responded. “School years were happy years for me. I trained as a teacher and taught in country schools during the depression, in the ‘30s. Nobody had money then, and one year I didn’t get paid at all. But I was glad of the experience, had room and board, and when I joined the army it helped to set me on a career path that carried me through until I retired.”