by James Spurr
Many natives stopped by to visit when the canoes were finally gathered together above the rapids. Word had spread that Bemose and Wasebitong had both returned and early. Several people were interested in meeting James and Oliver, paying respects and recalling their times spent with Captain William, who wintered with the People, both before and after the war.
James commented to Marie, “Should we begin again, before nightfall?”
She counseled, “Let Bemose have time with her friends.”
James nodded and reminded, “The next couple of days might be very difficult to her. He informed Bemose during a break in the steady stream of visitors, “Let us remain here and enjoy the people. We can begin early tomorrow.” Trove was having a smoke with a fur trader; Dunlap speaking Ojibwa with Chief Jack-o-pa.
She looked at him and nodded, “The next couple of days, I expect, will be very difficult for you and us all.”
Bemose turned to greet Mr. Johnston and Oshauguscodaywayquay, his native wife, granddaughter of Chief Mamongazida. Bemose sought to bring Marie into the social fabric by introducing her as the niece of a Jesuit and Bemose’s father, who some among them remembered.
James had little to do but think about what had so far, with the responsibilities of his small party embarked on a long journey, he had given little time or attention; the personal encounter with his father’s death.
Chapter Thirteen
By the middle of April, the early morning sun in the northern latitudes was still well to the south.
The very morning after two men formerly of two navies, a farmer, waterman, half native, young Metis and a recent French immigrant mingled among a native encampment, the sun rose over the larboard quarter of three canoes slipping westward above the falls. But soon the shoreline forced them still further north.
The diminutive vessels set off early and with all vigor upon the largest of the inland seas against a now slackening current. The party gradually loosed the grip of the St. Mary’s River. Whitefish Bay lay ahead, with the rolling hills and rock formations of Canada to starboard. Some of the most ancient rock found on the continent gradually diminished only by increasing distance. Whitefish Bay widened to reveal the very reason for the name of the waters upon which the party now ventured, “Superior.”
Bemose took as a good omen a brilliant column of golden light penetrating through low clouds lying to the southeast, contrasting with the reds and purples adjacent to the column and gun metal blue of the western sky. The column of light rose from the eastern horizon like an arrow pointing the way, urging, if not demanding, the canoes push further west without hesitation.
James needed no omen. He was hopeful of making Whitefish Point that very evening and did not so much as turn to watch the dawn. He focused only upon the sea and sky ahead. He knew well the promise of a dawn is often broken at sea before the day is done. James needed only calm winds and light seas, offering mercy and grace to those few paddling again for some hours for now a fourth day.
James adjusted his focus to the small world of his paddle and that of Marie’s, the familiar turn of the gunwales forward his thwart, the small of Marie’s back and the track of their canoe through fresh water, cold and pure. It struck him their canoe was tracking nearly perfectly through the water. He called, “Marie, our coordination is much improved; I am steering very little.”
She did not turn or break stroke, but replied, with evident joy in her voice, timing her words with her deep breaths, “James, I think it is coming to me!” After a few more strokes, “Just as it must have at some point, to my uncle.”
James knew Father Lapointe had not learned to paddle a canoe in France. His skill was learned from the Kitchigamig Anineshnebeg, perhaps from those very elders Marie met and visited with the night before, or most certainly their contemporaries. He could tell she was moved by the experience.
Perhaps, thought James, Marie had come to accept that of which he spoke months ago on the Great Western Canal and again on Lake Erie. He recalled her looks of concern as he cautioned, she treating his words as exaggeration; these inland seas were demanding of all one had to offer and often took more.
Life on the Lakes required trust as essential, even as it was dangerous. It was the currency of life, as often as the instrument of death. It was as often abused and regretted, as it was offered freely as prayer. Each outcome in which trust was expended was a function not of its inherent benefits, but of the good judgment, or lack of it as to whether such was warranted. Trust was sometimes the cause, often the effect, but always the current underlying each action.
Trust allowed mere men and some women a large journey in small craft. It provided the drama between the steady onslaught of large waves withstood by peeled bark and pine pitch. It explained a straight course amid constant paddling, when each from one side alone would result in folly. Trust justified a topman aloft on the yard, leaning well over, punching canvas, stepping along a footrope to the outboard end of a flemish horse. Or was that born of mere necessity, James asked himself, as he paddled in perfect unison with his bride. In any case, it explained the survival of life in harsh conditions; with its failure or misuse, death in the same.
Perhaps Marie was recognizing in him, a person finally admitted within her life, someone worthy of her trust, suggesting by the slightest whisper the chance of its seed and potential for harvest. Or perhaps Marie recognized mere circumstance, in which it benefited her to take such a risk and employ trust sparingly, as with black powder in the pan and with dinner in line between the sights.
But her judgment was sound, her trust well placed and their canoe led the party, much to the pleasure and pride of the others.
“I am coming to love these northern lands, James,” she offered, after nearly another hour of paddling.
Quite a topic to address properly between strokes, James thought and with a prominent point of land, just ahead, he replied, “With us in the lead, we must determine where we rest. I suggest just ahead, at the mouth of that outflow from the snowmelt.”
Their canoe began a gradual arc and for the first time, James and Marie were the first to wet their ankles and haul their canoe ashore. Never having expected their early arrival, the food was stowed in those lagging behind. James joked in calling out, “Hurry, we are starving! When keeping a proper stroke, one works up an appetite!”
The others accepted his good natured admonishments willingly enough and soon, after a late morning break, somewhat early for lunch, Bemose and Wasebitong looked to each other and agreed, “Let us pay our respects.” To the surprise of all others, they climbed the bluff and stood, looking out over the water, returning after just a few minutes.
Marie asked, “What is this place? Does it have some significance?”
Wasebitong looked to his mother and she answered, “Point Iroquois.” Bemose took some deep breaths, recovering from her climb to the top and resulting steep descent. “This is sacred ground. Many Ojibwa warriors fell here. This is as far west as the Nad-o-way advanced, so long ago. Our ancestors turned them back and we pushed on, further east, for years after.”
Dunlap offered Marie a translation of a native word she had not yet encountered, “The Ojibwa word for Iroquois, “Nad-o-way” is literally translated and means “snake.”
James thought of his point made to Bemose aboard St. Clair of the terrible wars fought between the people well before Europeans arrived in any significant numbers. He knew the battle to which she referred occurred more than one hundred and sixty years before, referenced in the Jesuit journals compiled generations well before Father Lapointe canoed the same waters.
Marie stared up at the bluff and across the horizon at the surrounding waters of what had first been known on French charts of “Lac Tracy.” She offered, “I think of those native nations, now so diminished. I see their native dress and customs, their feathers and bones, the ‘Tomahawk and Pipe Dance’ as we did last night and I think, James, are we witnessing the masks of Venice?”
James rai
sed an eyebrow in some small surprise, faced with an unexpected, yet intriguing thought from one he loved, but more to the point, truly respected.
All others in the party looked to him, hoping for some explanation of an observation made by the one among them most recently familiar with the cultural upheavals of Europe.
James thought for a moment, then asked Marie, “The masks of Venice? Do you mean those, by way of custom and practice the French tried to abolish?”
Marie nodded, encouraging her husband to make the connection. “Of course, along with the Austrians, or for that matter, consider the effect of the French upon the Ragussans of Dubrovnik.”
Her analogy held the interest of all.
James looked down to the sand, thinking of those experiences and lessons learned aboard John Adams seemingly so long ago. He was now in command, marginally, of a canoe shared with a remarkable woman. Somewhat uncomfortably, he asked, “So we are like Bonaparte?” His tone suggested he would never admit to such barbary.
Marie shook her head, “Perhaps not so deliberately, as individuals. But as a nation expanding, with one very different culture encountering another?” Her inflection delivered the implication. She then challenged, “Are not these native cultures truly disappearing from their ancestral homes?” She looked at Bemose and asked, “Is not your native culture now so diminished as will soon be lost?”
Bemose and Wasebitong stood motionless, conscious of the implications to their race, of that thought openly discussed among family and friends.
The others stood quietly for some moments, unprepared for such topics. They packed the food, in the light of day, with no brown jug or the comfort of a campfire to loosen captive thoughts and free reluctant words.
The others deferred to James, to whom after all, the question was initially posed. He looked up to the bluff, imagined the battle, then out to the open horizon begging for sails and commerce. He looked at Marie and hedged, “Bonaparte had by no means cultures anywhere near as different, in ruling Europe, as is found here between whites and natives.”
Marie looked him right in the eye, “Oh, you may be surprised, but even so, what of it?”
He knew what she really asked was whether his distinction was a sufficient justification. James considered those with whom he was surrounded and employed the only tool that would serve; he trusted in their acceptance of him as an American, their understanding of his past, raised without a mother and a mostly absent father, their pride in his naval service and devotion to his mentor resulting in their gratitude for his capability upon the inland seas.
James offered only, with the intellectual honesty required of those who love and trust, nodding slightly, “Yes, the masks of Venice.” James looked at his brother, right in the eye and admitted, “We are a nation expanding, with the force of a gale upon the sands of a windward beach.”
Wasebitong stood fast, nearly stone faced, showing little expression but his respect for an honest answer, from a man he could now call a brother.
All but James trusted a mark on a chart, drawn by one unknown to them, which noted Invincible. Nonetheless, all paddled onward, steering for all that she may hold within her skeletal frame. All but Dunlap had come to resolve there was nothing to fear in the truth. Dunlap seemed agitated and abruptly announced, “Enough, let us be off.”
As they launched the canoes, a longer rest ended than they had ever yet taken, Bemose handed James a note from her pack, aged and bound in twine. She explained, “I did not send them all to Marie. William left this note with the people, with me gone for a short trip to visit my mother’s parents on Sugar Island.”
She turned and walked back to her paddle, lying across the thwart of her canoe. James looked at the quickly darkening sky, roiling up from the southwest, thought only about the promise of a day shortened by an approaching storm and slid the letter into his coat. He would read it when the day’s paddling was done, their progress made and Invincible achieved.
But it was not to be; not that day. Despite the bright column of golden light, as promise is to the dawn, by mid afternoon the wind rose, the seas grew angry and the rain pelted the party so hard that it hurt. James directed all to put into the mouth of a river to make camp for the day just as the shore turned sharply north. To their right, as the shore receded, all could see where the land came to end at Whitefish Point, barely in sight through yet another rain squall.
It rained for hours. They postponed dinner until nearly dark, hoping a fire would allow for a well cooked meal. They overturned canoes to keep supplies dry. They stacked dried wood under cover so that when the skies cleared, whitefish snatched from the rapids and wrapped by Saulteurs easily provided their best dinner yet since departing Detroit.
At first, with James and Marie taking shelter in their tent, the gloom made the handwriting more difficult; the very topic, dark. But after he read the note several times, the gradual brightening matched his mood.
Dear One,
If you are reading this, I have taken a final voyage yet this season with Owen, departing this day. Late in the season, perhaps, and while the wage is welcome, I set off for other reasons entirely.
A rogue has set about to mistreat some Metis at Fort William and beyond. I cannot, it seems, allow for those like our son, Shining Water, to become the object of such cruelty.
I will assist with the navigation and upon reaching Fort William, in establishing some order. You and our son, I hope, will understand and encourage me in this absence, after a season together, here among the people. For so many years, I was not there for James and regret it each day.
I will not make that mistake with George; this brief absence, the exception. In assisting those like him, no, like us, I hope to make less likely the prospect of injustice to us all.
I have prepaid accounts in town and provided for you both in my absence. With winter coming on, be assured I will better fit the door when I return.
My Love to Both,
William
James stared at the page. Marie noted the wet in his eyes and left him alone. Bemose kept her distance from his tent. James looked out from the open flap, first to Oliver, then to Owen as dusk descended and knew he had been overly harsh. The letter just shared by Bemose revealed what could only exonerate both in judgments pronounced by him since first learning of his father’s death on the deck of Java with Perry at his side.
His father had not taken the late season voyage as the result of misguided national loyalties. Its purpose was not a mere favor to a friend and brother-in-law or so to assist his nation’s arch rival, England, in yet another of her remote imperial settlements.
Captain William took the voyage to atone for perceived sins; his prolonged absences from his eldest son, so many years ago, even as his second son, he knew, would require his presence, guidance and perhaps defense for many years hence. His father took the voyage as his personal pronouncement of support of the Metis, of James’ brother, of a race so often regarded as inferior among so many English and Americans.
The letter lay to rest some questions and doubts. But not all. James was very conscious of still other questions, which haunted him for years on waters so very different and distant from the inland seas, from the Adriatic to the Caribbean, building to near obsession made more acute since the arrival of a leather satchel, as he drew ever nearer to his father’s remains.
He folded the note and slid it back into his coat pocket. He rose from his blanket and went to join dinner.
Dunlap and Oliver were studying the copy of Lieutenant Bayfield’s chart, made after their dinner on Mackinaw. They rolled it out atop an overturned canoe resting on large trunks fallen on the forest floor near the shore and made a part of the camp. The arrangement allowed for their supplies to remain dry during the rain. Dunlap explained, “Straightforward enough from here on the ‘morrow, what?”
James announced, surprising them that he had joined, “Perhaps not.”
Oliver looked at him, moved the oil lamp closer, then
looked back to the chart, puzzled, and challenged, “We cannot be but twenty miles from the Point.”
Dunlap remained quiet, offering only an inquisitive look.
James quietly assured, “Perhaps less.” He approached the chart, sighed and stated as a simple matter of fact, “Bayfield was good, no doubt. But his chart was wrong. And so is our copy.”
Dunlap showed his surprise and asked, obviously not convinced, “In what way? How do you know? You have never been here.”
James indicated with the narrow end of Dunlap’s clay pipe which had been lying on the chart awaiting a light from the campfire. “Take this longitude line down to the scale.”
Oliver remained erect and just looked at James, his mouth open in surprise. Dunlap did as suggested, repeated the exercise and straightened, his look of concern confessing an error.
Wasebitong joined them, curious as to their intensifying conversation. James wondered if Bemose had ever shown him the letter she handed him just that afternoon. He almost mentioned it, but instead returned to the matter at hand.
Dunlap looked at James and agreed, “The chart is flawed.”
James explained to his uncle and his brother, “The curve of the land could well be dead on, but did Bayfield mark the wreck by coordinates of latitude or longitude, or did he actually see the wreck on the beach? I do not know.”
Oliver looked to Dunlap, who conceded, “Many charts are drawn by others from field notes made by survey and triangulation. Usually these parties operate from numerous small boats, setting off each day from larger vessels, all taking careful measurements from various angles. If a longitude line is off…” He shrugged.
Marie and Bemose rose from the campfire, witnessing some confusion and concern among their men.
James finished his thought, teasing but allowing himself some credit in the joke, “As you were all entertaining the encampment with your rendition of the ‘Pipe Dance,’ knowing so few as I did last evening, I checked the scale with that line of longitude running so closely parallel to the beach. It may be a tenth of a mile off, maybe more.”