We spotted a white-shell beach in a short time, so we pulled in near the beach and anchored. There should be a stream; and there was. There was a high mound on the north of the beach which thrust out into the sea. From the top of the mound, on a clear day, you could probably see for miles both up and down the inlet. We had settled on its being the lookout point for the village, which probably lay back of the shell beach—when John fell into the excavation of what had once been a community house. It didn’t take long to find the remains of the house posts, which had formed the doorway and supported the roof beams. All very old....How much better to live up on a mound like that, where you could spot the enemy dugout a long way off.
“They probably sneaked up in the fog,” said Peter, spotting a weak point.
We found a few slate spearheads, made of slate with a bevelled edge. Farther down the coast they are usually made of chipped flint. The clouds began to drip now, and we went back on board. I took a line and sounded round in a circle. There seemed to be plenty of water if we didn’t swing. I carried out a stem-anchor in the dinghy, as we might as well stay here for the night. The Coast Pilot had been very discouraging about anchorages of any kind—there just were none, according to them. Well, well! It didn’t mention the Indian passage either.
We stuck it out for two more days. It wasn’t a downpour, it was just a very wet drizzle, and with no visibility at all. With the canvas curtains closed, and the Coleman stove going, we could keep warm and dry. I had some sourdough on board, which old Mike had given us. So I made bread buns in the iron frying pan covered with a plate. Then we made a pail of baked beans. Usually, we bury the pail in the ashes of our bonfire at night—leaving them there all night. The ones cooked quickly are not as good. But with the beans, and the smell of the fresh bread, we were fairly drooling by the time they were ready to eat.
Then we had the worry of getting out through the rapids again. Still not sure of our clock, we waited around in the swirls at a good safe distance until they quietened down. Then we judged that that must be the beginning of the ebb. We were perhaps a few minutes late but had no trouble.
It had been a long, slow trip down the Indian passage in the fog and rain to Blunden Harbour. Never quite sure where we were. Always the possible wind to worry about. It would be very easy to miss the entrance. Then, in a kindly way that fog sometimes has, it lifted long enough for us to identify a headland and the Raynor group. A few minutes later we slipped inside the entrance to Blunden Harbour.
The chart showed a store and post office. We worked our way across to where it was marked on the right of the entrance. A half-sunken float came out of the fog. We tied up to the least sunk end of it. Above the bank was a long, low building, marked store and post office. But the room was caved in, and a rotting verandah sagged off one end of the building. The chart was plainly a little out of date.
After lunch we piled into the dinghy and, in a dreary drizzle, started off in search of the Indian village. We found it after some time tucked away behind some islands at the north end of the harbour. It looked very small and very dreary.
We landed on the white-shell beach beside a beautifully spiralled pole, on top of which sat a comfortable-looking carved eagle with outstretched wings—looking complacently down on our wet figures. These Indian figures are always so darned indifferent. They take everything, and give absolutely nothing—except that stony silence. Perhaps it was just as well in our case—after a week of almost steady fog and rain, one gentle look and we would all have dissolved in tears.
I diffidently shook the rain from my wet shoulders and followed the youngsters up the steep, hewn steps that led to the village platform. Two community houses stood side by side, with heavily barred doors—and padlocks. Not content with that, a large neatly-written notice proclaimed that “Mr. Potladakami George. This chief of this Nagwadakwa People. It is get away. $265.50.” We were plainly not welcome. But we ignored Mr. Potladakami George and his notices and padlocks. We took the-way-of-souls, and entered by the two loose boards, round at the side, that are always left for departing spirits. It was cold inside, and a strong smell of damp earth rose in the darkness. Not exactly inviting...but the steady sound of rain on the roof set us to work raking together the bits of charred wood on the place for fires.
A feeble blaze soon flickered, and lighted up the old house with creeping light. The heavy pungent smoke rose and filtered out the smoke hole in the roof, just as smokily as it had two hundred years before. The children crowded closer to me—for as our eyes grew more accustomed to the dim light, the weird carved inmates gradually ventured out of the shadows. The tall, dark house posts took shape; and like some horrible nightmare seemed to grow bigger and bigger—and then showed themselves as great ugly men with hollow cheeks and protruding eyes. The flickering fire gave them movement and expression, and they leered and grimaced and reached at us.
The youngsters were uneasy...one by one they made some excuse and scuttled out through the-way-of-souls, and left me.
I glanced to the rear of the house to find the companion-posts, but a great sisciatl, a mythical doubleheaded serpent, lay stretched across a rear platform. In Indian folklore anyone who is unfortunate enough to meet a sisciatl shivers and shakes until his limbs drop off. I was certainly shivering, but I knew it was from the cold. However, I kicked the fire together.
I found the round, dark shapes on the side platforms to be great ceremonial dishes carved out of single blocks of cedar—pairs of animals or birds holding the dish between their outstretched paws or wings. Food was served in these when the chief gave a party or potlatch.
Potlatches are forbidden on the coast now—the authorities think it makes the Indians improvident. I think it probably worked both ways. When a chief gave a blanket potlatch, after two or three days of feasting, he presented each guest with a blanket—perhaps a hundred being given away. After which a very great, very powerful chief sat shivering with not enough to cover him, having given away blankets that had taken him years to collect. But—every guest had to give him a potlatch in return, at some future time. So, in a sense, it was a form of insurance.
In spite of the apparent sophistication of Potladakami George this house had more beautiful carved things than we had seen in any other village. There was a great carved wooden spoon, four feet high, with its bowl as big as a soup tureen. Its handle was an eagle with folded wings, and a human hand supported the bowl. A graceful flying dove was carved of cedar, but when you turned its breast towards you it changed to a hideous man with goggle eyes who stuck his tongue out at you. All rather mixed metaphor it seemed—but Indian folklore is like that.
I picked up a pair of beautifully carved hands, and wondered what they had been used for. But striking them idly together I knew at once.
“Clap...clap...clap!” At the sound, the whole atmosphere of the old house seemed intensified. In just such a setting they might have been used—smoking fires, steaming clothes, the bang of the wind-lifted roof boards, the splash and drip of the driving rain, and nothing to do on some dark winter evening.
“Clap...clap...clap!” of the olden wooden hands. Out of the room partitioned off at the rear would have burst the masked Indian dancers, each wearing the mask and pelt of the animal he represented. He of the wolf-mask, see him pick his way along—stepping lightly, slinking, smelling. The bear-mask—lurching clumsily in a near-sighted roll. The finding of the honey. Horrible defeat by bees. Ignominious retreat, tail between legs. Loud laughter of superior wolf and shouts of the delighted audience. “Clap...clap...clap!” of the wooden hands.
“Mummy!” called a voice, outside the loose boards. “Mummy, are you all right? John is crying.”
I pushed my way through the boards.
“Why, John, what is the matter?” I asked.
He wouldn’t speak—just clutched me.
“He thought you were probably dead,” explained Peter.
John only glared.
“Well, let’s get back to th
e boat,” I suggested.
We swung round the bay as we went. Passed close to the burial island. It was very overgrown, but above the nettles and the salmonberry bushes the two heads of a great sisciatl dared us to touch the dead of their tribe.
The rain had stopped before we got back to the boat. I tapped the glass—it was slowly rising. We would leave this village of the Nagwadakwa people in the morning.
SUNDAY HARBOUR
NEXT MORNING WE HEADED SOUTH. GREAT HEAVY clouds hung low and white, covering the still-sleeping hills and mountains like a downy comforter. Up we rose on the long swell, and then the smooth hurried slide as it urged us on our way. Peter had the wheel and was managing nicely. Jan and I pulled out the chart and the well-worn Coast Pilot to look for shelter—in case of need, in view of the probable wind.
“What day is it?” asked Jan, looking up from the chart.
Sunday, we finally decided, after much thought and calculation—days get lost or found so easily when you have been playing with years and centuries in old Indian villages.
“Well, here’s a Sunday Harbour all ready for us!” I looked over her shoulder—a little ring of islands on the fringe of Queen Charlotte Sound. But sure enough, Sunday Harbour was marked with an anchor as shelter and holding ground. I opened the Pilot book to look it up...British Columbia Coast Waters...Queen Charlotte Sound...Fog Island...Dusky Cove. Ah! Sunday Harbour. Pilot book says, “Small but sheltered anchorage on south side of Crib Island. Affords refuge for small boats.” I didn’t altogether like that word “refuge,” it sounded like a last extremity. Still, the name was alluring. So, if we need it, Sunday Harbour let it be.
The nine o’clock wind was now flicking at our heels. The mountains had tossed off their comforters and were sticking up their heads to look about them. It does not take much wind, on top of the swell, to make a nasty sea in the sound. I relieved the mate at the wheel—for it depends on the balance on top of a crest whether you make the long slide down the other side safely or not.
“I don’t quite like the mightn’ts!” said John anxiously.
“What mightn’ts?” I asked, as I spun the wheel.
“The mightn’ts be able to swim,” said John, eyeing the rough waters that curled at our stern.
But even as we were all about to admit that it was much too rough for our liking, we were out of it—for Sunday Harbour opened its arms and we were received into its quiet sabbatical calm. It was low, low tide—which means in this region a drop of twenty-five feet. Islands, rocks and reefs towered above our quiet lagoon; and only in the tall trees, way up, did the wind sing of the rising storm outside.
Low, low tide—primeval ooze, where all life had its beginning. Usually it is hidden with four or five feet of covering water; but at low, low tide it is all exposed and lies naked and defenseless at your feet. Pale-green sea-anemones, looking like exotic asters, opened soft lips and gratefully engulfed our offerings of mussel meat. Then shameful to say, we fed them on stones, which they promptly spat out. We thought uncomfortably of Mrs. Be-done-by-as-you-did, and wandered on in search of abalones on their pale-pink mottled rocks.
Then, blessing of blessings, out came the sun! Sun, whom we hadn’t seen for days and days, soothing us, healing us, blessing us. Sunday Harbour? Yes—but it was named for quiet Christian principles and little white churches; and we were worshipping the old god of the day because he shone on us. Sun, O Sun....We slipped off our clothes and joined the sea-beasts in “the ooze of their pasture grounds.”
“Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, where the winds are all asleep; where the spent lights quiver and gleam; where the saltweed sways in the stream....” I came up to breathe—Jan and Peter were having a floating competition, Jan was sending up tall spouts of water from her mouth, and the sun was shining on their upturned faces. I looked around for John...there he was doing a dead man’s float all by himself—face downwards, only his small behind gleaming on the surface.
Somehow, I mistrusted that word “refuge” from the beginning—it was too suggestive of other things, such as trouble or shipwreck. And then one always forgets that Pilot books, even if they say small vessels, probably mean cruisers as opposed to battleships. All day the place was perfect. We might have been in a land-locked lake, miles and miles from the sea. But as daylight faded, the tide rose. And by and by it rose some more—and gone was our quiet lagoon. We could see the wild ocean over the tops of our island, and the waves drove through gaps that we had not even suspected. The wind, which all day had kept to the tree tops, now swooped and tore at our refuge like a wild frenzied thing....And by and by it rose some more—and the gusts of wind swept our little boat in wide dizzying semi-circles—first one way and then the other. I let out more and more rope, but our anchor started to drag...and it dragged, and the wind blew, and the tide rose; and finally we were blown out of Sunday Harbour, and backwards into Monday Harbour.
Monday Harbour was another misnomer—a battleship might have held its own, but not a little boat with an uneasy name. I hesitated about staying, then put out two anchors—for the moon was glorious, full and bright; and it swung high, swung low, in the swaying branches. But the wind was making a night of it too. Sleep was impossible with a boat on the prowl; and beauty is only relative. So somewhere in those cold lost hours of a new day I damned the gods of Sun and Moon that led poor sailors from the narrow way, started up my engine and went and found a cove all of my own. Ignored by charts, unsung by Coast Pilot, it was calm, it was quiet, it was unnamed. I dropped the anchor...and went to sleep.
Morning revealed a white-shell beach in Tuesday Cove. My crew, who had kept no tryst with strange gods in the night, were already swimming when I awoke—their little naked, brown bodies glistening against the shimmering white shell. They are used to waking up in strange coves and accept it without much comment.
“But how did we ever get to this nice place?” I heard John ask.
“We just came, silly!” said Peter. “In the night.” His face went under and his feet churned the water to foam.
KARLUKWEES VILLAGE
IT WAS DUSK BEFORE WE DROPPED ANCHOR IN KARLUKWEES BAY. It had been slow work feeling our way through the kelp-choked passages, and now it was too late to explore. Dimly above its shell beach the village curved in a half-moon on its high midden. A totem pole thrust itself up into the night. Great shadowy figures, cold and implacable, stared through the grey light at two small islands across the bay. Low white figures were keeping watch over there. One of them looked like a running animal of some kind—sinister, watchful. Burial islands, I guessed unhappily, as the night and the figures crowded close.
The whispering crew soon hushed to sleep. Somewhere behind a tall hill a late moon was hesitating to show itself. But in spite of my foolish tryst with her the night before, in Monday Harbour, I awaited her coming eagerly, for it was dark and lonely with the burial islands and all.
A swift tide thrummed its way through the massed kelp, and the eddies sucked and swirled over some hidden reef. If our boat sank in the night, it might be a couple of months before we were missed.
“That little white boat with the woman and children,” somebody would suddenly think. “I haven’t seen it around this fall.” But by this time the little crabs would be playing in and out our ribs; those horrible figures would still be staring over the water, and we wouldn’t be able to tell anybody that we were lying down there below.
We had just started our early breakfast next morning when a great northern raven discovered us and hurried down with welcoming shouts. He perched on a rocky point not far off and inquired about this, that, and the other thing. He chuckled over some of our up-coast news, and regretfully muttered “Tch—tch—tch!” over other bits. Then he proceeded to tell us all the winter gossip of the village as we ate our breakfast. They are the most extraordinary birds. They can ask a question, express sorrow or surprise, with all the intonations of the human voice. The old Indians credit them with unusual powers. A priest told
the story of seeing an old Indian sitting smoking on the village beach. A raven alighted on the tree above the old man’s head and they carried on a conversation for some minutes—both apparently talking. When the raven flew away the priest went down to the beach and questioned the Indian....The old man was reluctant, but finally said, “Raven say, dead man come to village tonight.”
The priest rebuked him for such nonsense—the old Indian shrugged his shoulders and put his pipe back in his mouth. But that night a canoe brought a dead man back to the village.
Our raven was trying to tell us so much that we couldn’t understand. Finally, he flew away, “See you again,” he unmistakably croaked—and the place seemed empty with his going.
Once more we beat and laid the nettles low. Only one community house was intact in Karlukwees village, but there were remains of at least half a dozen more. Under the spell of the surroundings it was easy to see the old village as it must have been. The house posts in this one house were not carved, but were fluted like the big main beams. Out in front were two fine old carved ravens with outspread wings, standing on the heads of grizzly bears. A thunderbird sat on the edge of the midden and gazed across the bay.
I left Jan trying to sketch the thunderbird, and the other two picking up old blue trading beads; and worked my way through the nettles to a burial tree that I had spotted right back of the village. It was an immense fir, seven or eight hundred years old—so old that nothing could amaze it any more. Streamers of lichen dripped grey from bark and branches. Century after century it had stood there watching the fortunes of the little village at its feet. Had it rejoiced with them in the good times—times of plenty? Wept with them in the bad times—times of battle and famine? Or had it merely held their dead more lightly or more tightly, as required? There were nine or ten boxes still up there, clasped in its gnarled branches. Perhaps the old tree’s clutch was growing feeble, or perhaps it was too old to care—for when I stepped round its base to the other side, three blood-stained skulls lay there on the ground. I shrank back in horror...but making myself look again, saw that it was only dye off the burial blankets.
The Curve of Time Page 9