A Land Apart

by Ian Roberts

  “With all due respect Father du Barre, Brulé is the fur trade. He has lived out there with the Wendat for twenty-five years. As long as I have been here. All the trade routes to the north and the west for hundreds of miles, he has created those. He has created the relationships with all the tribes, speaks their languages and dialects. All that trade funnels through the Wendat and then to us. Because of him. Because of Brulé.”

  “A useful foundation to be sure—”

  “He will not help you.”

  “What do you mean he will not help me. As of now he works for me.”

  The absurdity of the idea causes Champlain to snort, despite himself.

  “What is so amusing?” The priest, accustomed to members of the French court humbling themselves in his presence, fumes at what he sees as Champlain’s impertinence.

  Again, Champlain realizes he has offended du Barre. His sense of diplomacy is normally innate, automatic; he reads people easily. But looking at du Barre now, Champlain realizes he cannot fathom what lies beneath the priest’s arrogant, pious exterior. Except that he doesn’t like it. Or trust it.

  He responds as patiently as he can, “We have a simple arrangement. We stay out of the Land of the Wendat. Brulé brings the furs. That supports Québec. And that supports France.”

  “We do not need to honor this dismal agreement if we plan to colonize there.”

  “Where? You mean in the Land of the Wendat?”

  Du Barre nods. “We must claim this territory for France. Now, before the English push further north. Not just on paper, but with colonies.”

  In all the years Champlain has been governor in Québec, listening to the latest schemes and plans for the New World arriving fresh from the French court, nothing has come close to this in utter outrageousness. He turns away from the penetrating glare of the priest and again gazes out the window to avoid saying or doing something he might regret. The two men he had seen smoking earlier have disappeared. He collects himself and then states, in as even a voice as he can muster, “That is ridiculous.”

  “My dear Monsieur Champlain, you sent a report yourself to this effect. Your exploration from what, twenty years ago? You see, we do read your reports. Based on your description we thought it an excellent location for a colony.”

  “I think what I wrote was, yes, the area around Ossossane in the Land of the Wendat would make a good colony. But, first, we would need to build four or five well-garrisoned forts linking Quebéc and Ossossane together.”

  “We have sufficient numbers and resources now…and I think you underestimate the ability of our troops.”

  Champlain pounds his fist on the desk. Rising abruptly, he knocks his chair out of the way and turns to jab his finger at a large map hanging on the wall.

  “We are here.” He jabs again. “The Wendat live there. That is five hundred miles of savage, relentless wilderness infested with Iroquois. The only safe route to the Land of the Wendat is a north route of over eight hundred miles. You cannot build a colony there. Not a colony of five hundred. Not a colony of fifty. You cannot possibly imagine the difficulty of what you propose. Unless, you go there yourself. Then you would see. Then you would understand that what you say is a fantasy.”

  “That is exactly what I have been sent here to do.”

  “What?”

  “To see the Land of the Wendat for myself.”

  “You are mad!”

  “You have been there.”

  Champlain looks at the priest, sizing up just how long this man would last in a wilderness as unrelenting and unforgiving as that which lies to the west, which the priest so arrogantly hoped to conquer. Du Barre feels the scrutiny.

  “I take with me the will of the Crown of France.”

  “It will not be the will of the Crown out there with you, Father. Out there, in the wilderness, it will be your will and yours alone.”

  Four days later, Petashwa sorts through the expedition supplies strewn out along the loading dock by the river below Québec. His attention shifts from the three oversized trunks perched on the dock, to the slow descent of their owners down the steep hill from the fort and to several finely-crafted Algonquin birch bark canoes. The canoes measure twenty and twenty-two feet. The trunks belong in the hold of a ship, not in a canoe.

  Father du Barre arrives on the dock, ignoring Petashwa and the three Algonquin assisting him. He looks over the supplies as the rest of the French party now join him. Two are French nobles, the Marquis Joseph-Albert de Clemont and the Count Jean-Marie de Valery.

  To Petashwa, the nobles resemble rare exotic birds, attired in their high-heeled, buckled shoes, silk stockings, brocade frock coats with their huge cuffs of silk and lace. They sport finely groomed beards, long, elaborate wigs with oversized black hats aloft with plumage. Each lean on tall, silver-handled walking sticks and, hanging at their waists, fine, jewelled ornamental swords. Neither man can be older than thirty. Two well-dressed servants hover behind them.

  “Father du Barre, we cannot have finished this discussion,” complains the Marquis, mopping his face with a lace handkerchief. “He has no idea what it is like here. He thinks Québec is a town.”

  The Count de Valery scoffs. “A few wooden sheds. It is bestial. And look at that,” waving his hand out across the river, assuming the gesture at the wilderness speaks for itself.

  Du Barre looks at them severely. “Cardinal Richelieu made it very clear.”

  “But he had no idea—”

  “I think in fact, he did,” corrected du Barre. “Your parents pleaded for you. You should count yourselves lucky. It could have been much worse.”

  “Than this?” De Clemont looks down, chastened and angry.

  While they thoroughly ignore Petashwa, he studiously watches them. The two nobles seem like children — de Clemont mean and destructive; de Valery, weak and looking to de Clemont for direction. The priest he fears immediately, intuitively; something about him does not match the smooth exterior he presents. What lies beneath that exterior Petashwa cannot read but it feels neither simple nor kind — two qualities every other priest in Québec at least aspires to.

  Petashwa was wary of priests in the past but over the years, as his responsibilities grew and the relationship with Champlain became more open and intimate, Champlain had exerted more pressure on him to convert to Christianity. And in the end he did. In name at least. But in truth, as he became more enmeshed with the French in Québec, and hence had to make some show of his interest in Christianity, he found in fact, he was bewildered by it. Bewildered by how distant and different the Christian God was to his own idea of a Great Spirit that was present and alive everywhere he looked…at least when he was in the woods and not in the boxed confines of the fort.

  He did not understand the reasons for worshipping this man Jesus or why he was so important to the Christians. Nor could he understand why anyone would live under the constant threat of hellfire and damnation. Forever. He knew when he posed questions to the priests they found him simple-minded. Most of the priests treated him and the other Algonquin like children. But not Champlain. Champlain had struggled with the Algonquin language and still tried to learn it. But he sized up each Algonquin individually, clearly and, to Petashwa’s mind, fairly. Champlain trusted him now. So when he told Champlain about these three trunks, their size, their weight, it had led to this. Now the three Frenchmen are here and Petashwa wonders how to start and what to say.

  “Who are we supposed to speak to?” asks de Clemont. “We’ve come all the way down here in this heat and there is no one here.”

  “You come to talk with me,” Petashwa responds in French.

  De Clemont turns his head abruptly at these words and notices Petashwa for the first time.

  “You?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “This is Champlain’s assistant,” explains du Barre.

  “A savage?” says de Clemont.

  Champlain had warned Petashwa how they might react. “I will be your guide.
”

  “Really? You must jest,” says de Clemont turning to du Barre perplexed.

  “Sir, I have been to the Land of the Wendat many times,” Petashwa says.

  “Champlain assures me that if anyone can get us there and back alive, it will be this one,” adds du Barre.

  Both de Clemont and de Valery exclaim, “Alive? What do you mean alive?”

  Petashwa knows that Champlain had made repeated efforts, in vain, to explain to du Barre the dangers of taking the shorter of the two routes to the Land of the Wendat. He’d repeated the warnings of the Wendat traders from earlier in the summer that the Iroquois were out and active on that route. But the priest had ignored Champlain’s warnings, “I have my soldiers, They are French, fresh, well-disciplined,” he insisted, “and more than able to handle any threat these Iroquois may pose.”

  Petashwa knew the soldiers’ European training in warfare would prove useless against the Iroquois. But he said nothing. Instead Petashwa says, “Sirs, if I may, I speak to you about what you bring on this exploration,” pointing at the trunks.

  “We had our trunks brought this morning, just as we were instructed,” answers de Clemont.

  “We packed the bare minimum as we were told,” added de Valery.

  “Sirs, we are traveling in those canoes.” Petashwa now points at the seven birch bark canoes lying at the end of the dock. Five men in each.”

  “In those?” scoffs de Clemont. “That is ridiculous.”

  “Thirty-five of us with all our belongings for two months,” clarifies Petashwa.

  Something of what lies ahead begins to form in de Clemont’s mind for the first time.

  “I left the most opulent court in Europe, for this. I am at least going to be comfortable. I can not take less,” snaps de Clemont.

  Du Barre surveys the trunks, one of them his, and the size of the canoes. He admires his piety and is more than willing to suffer for Christ, or the Crown, if need be. “Yes, I see,” he says. “Can you supply me with a smaller case? Monsieurs de Clemont and de Valery, you will cut your belongings in half and repack them in cases which I am sure these…men will be happy to supply you with.”

  “Half!”

  “And just one servant for the two of you. Is that correct?” looking at Petashwa.

  “One?” they both whined. “But whose. I can’t leave without —”

  Du Barre raises his hand to silence them. “I am sure you can come to some agreement.”

  It is clear to Petashwa that du Barre takes pleasure in adding to the nobles’ misery. He feels he needs to add one more thing. “Sirs, I fear you will have difficulty traveling dressed like that. We can supply —”

  De Clemont turns on him, “We represent the Court of Louis the XIII. And we will continue to represent the court even here.”

  Beside a river, meandering through a wide expanse of open land, surrounded by forest, stands Ossossane, a Wendat village. A palisade, a sturdy twenty-foot wall, several layers thick, of sharpened pine poles, surrounds and protects the village. Stretching away from the village and the river into the heat-hazed distance, Wendat tend their ripening crops of corn, beans and squash.

  Two hundred yards from the palisade, isolated and forlorn on the far side of the corn and squash crops, hugging the edge of the forest, sits a rough hut of bark. A large, wooden cross made of two stripped pine logs stands before its entrance and a tarnished bell hangs next to the doorway. Above the door hangs a now weather-beaten crucifix. Whether by intention or chance, the eyes of Christ gaze directly out at the palisade wall of the Wendat village.

  Inside the small chapel several logs serve as pews on the dirt floor. But the bark hut is empty now save for two priests who kneel in front of the wooden altar. A candle burning in its silver holder and a silver cross standing on an altar cloth almost transform the lowly space. The priests say Mass.

  Not a mile away, and much deeper into the forest, another bark hut nestles in isolation. Inside, alone, the Wendat shaman Okatwan, chants. He chants a slow, rhythmic cry, more animal than human, as he beats a hide drum. Firelight flickers in his luminous eyes. He stares, as if transfixed, as if seeing something not of this world, but another. Mingled with his voice, mirroring its rhythm, other voices around him seem to pulse and reverberate in accompaniment.

  Back in the small chapel, the two priests finish their Mass, but continue to kneel, savouring the silence and solace of the service. Father LeCharon, pale, bearded and gaunt, takes a deep breath and lifts his head. He rises slowly, stiff from kneeling for so long. Father Marquette, red beard and complexion, gazes up at the altar and crosses himself. Both dress in threadbare, patched black robes. The black robes of the Jesuits.

  Father Marquette now stands, tall, straight and confident. Father LeCharon glances uneasily at him, but Marquette has already turned and started for the door, so he follows. They walk in silence through shafts of sunlight filtering through the cracks in the bark roof. The light glows through the incense smoke. LeCharon looks at the empty pews.

  When they first arrived here the Wendat had sent them a dozen boys for instruction. Now he realizes the Wendat had just been polite, hospitable. The boys were wild and undisciplined and so Father Marquette had brandished a stick to try and gain some order. Eventually, in his frustration, he used it and the boys scattered and ran out the door with him chasing behind them. They were the last Wendat to enter the chapel. That was almost eight months ago.

  Marquette dips his fingers in a small wooden bowl of water set by the door, crosses himself again, pulls aside the oil cloth that serves as the makeshift door and walks outside, shielding his piercing blue eyes from the harsh sunlight. LeCharon stands, squinting beside him. Both look at the palisade of the Wendat village. LeCharon, unaware he has let out a long sigh, feels his shoulders sag. The spiritual solace and lift from Mass dissipates in the breeze.

  A loud banging jolts them both to attention. Marquette turns, grabs a stick leaning against the wall and strides around the side of the chapel. A group of Wendat boys, practically naked, bang on the side of the bark wall of the hut with sticks, shouting. Marquette races towards them, the stick raised ready to strike, reenacting once again his futile attempt at discipline. The boys scream and run, taunting Marquette, as they disappear into the safety of the forest. LeCharon follows more slowly. As the last boy slips out of sight he surveys the dense wall of trees in front of him. “What a grim exile.” Marquette frowns and turns his fanatical gaze upon LeCharon, “In the eyes of Our Lord, Jean-Philippe, the greater the test, the greater the glory.”

  The four canoes of the Wendat rise and fall on the slow swell of a seemingly limitless lake, called by the Wendat, Attiguautan.* Its offing unfolds into water and sky as endless as an ocean. Paddling south, the canoes hug the shoreline of smooth, pink granite islands lapped incessantly by the waves of crystal clear water. Sculpted pine trees, twisted and bent by the prevailing west wind, claw for existence through the stone. When first travelling here with Brulé more than twenty years earlier, Champlain had called it “la mer douce”, or the sweet sea, both because it wasn’t salt water, but also because of its vast, rugged beauty.

  Now, after a month of travelling, they are almost home. With each stroke their hands brush the cold water as the waves lap and drum the sides of the canoe. Brulé has always savoured these fur trading expeditions. In the long hours of paddling out on the lake, his mind slowly empties out, becomes quiet, open, at peace, as if the peace and spirit of the land were somehow finding resonance within him and flowing through him. He feels connected, enlarged and comforted by a force for which he has no words. Champlain had always encouraged, almost begged him, to keep journals, make notes and take compass readings to help map the vast unknown wilderness he had come to know so well. But Brulé found the longer he settled into the world of the Wendat, the less was his desire or need to write.

  The greater desire was to let go, embrace the deep sense of attunement with the natural unfolding of events, ebbing and
flowing, playing out and dispersing, moment by moment, around him. He navigates, now, to a different compass.

  But something has changed, and that peace feels shattered. Since the gruesome discovery of the murdered tribesmen a week ago, he cannot avoid a mounting sense of dread. The Iroquois represent the Wendat’s most fearsome enemy. At this point on the journey, so close to home, his companions would normally be joking and laughing amongst themselves. Instead, they are sullen, withdrawn. He senses their unease, as if something has shifted in their world that they cannot yet understand. Brulé though, understands only too well. He had seen how in Québec the Algonquin and the Wendat lusted after muskets and had never traded the Wendat furs for them. The Jesuits had seen it too, and knew that desire was all they might have to convince the Wendat to embrace Christianity. The irony of that never escaped Brulé — guns for Christ. He had never brought one back to the Wendat. But now…

  They have pushed hard to get home, paddling from sunrise to sunset. Usually so at peace in the woods, Brulé is impatient now to reach Ossossane, their village, to see his wife, ensure the village is safe, and to talk with Atironta, the Wendat chief.

  They paddle east past several islands and around a long arm of smooth rock. Beyond, the land transforms dramatically into forest and open meadows.

  “I’ve been agonizing over what we’ll find at the village,” says Brulé.

  “We will know now soon enough,” says Savignon. “These Iroquois guns…you know I always hated the raids and the skirmishes we had with the Iroquois. I just lost my taste for proving myself like that in France. Lost courage maybe. I could not strut, chest puffed and be counted as a warrior, for my people. But this is different. It pushes the problem right into our face, right into the safety of our villages.”

  “I don’t think it is courage you lack, Savignon. But I understand.” Brulé was prodably the only one who did understand. Many Wendat found Savignon a bit strange and aloof since his return so many years ago. His French experience formed him in the very years he would have become a warrior at home. But Brulé found much in him to admire and the two have been fast friends for over twenty years.