possesses its drinkers. He whistles softly to Atilq and together they move off the rock to a canopy of young trees, a vantage point closer to where the trade will take place.
I T’S MID-MORNING when Charlotte sees the Indians approaching. Eight maybe ten, walking down the long path that leads from the forest on the hillside to Alston Point. They are carrying something—furs perhaps, piled on a tarpaulin that’s slung over two poles. She’s anxious to be present when the commodore goes out to greet them, but a residual fear still lingers so she waitsand spies on them from a distance. One speaks to the commodore in English. They want to trade the goods they carry for the molasses and rum he brought on the schooner. There’s a lot of talking, must be the way they make the trade, she thinks. At last, the exchange is made. She has lost her chance to speak to an Indian and sulks about it when the commodore returns to the house. He tells her that he has to go to the camp to meet with their leader, Chief Francis Julian, later in the afternoon and that she can go with him if she likes.
He has no special instructions for her while they walk the short distance to the camp except to say the Indians are known as the People of the Salmon and are respected for their medicinal remedies. The camp is situated at the top of a hill that overlooks the harbour on one side and the bay on the other. Walker explains, “It’s a fine location for a camp, high enough to be dry but close enough to the water below to have easy access to the canoes and a fresh-water lagoon that empties into the harbour immediately below the camp.”
Closer now, she can see that the camp is surrounded by trees—spruce, poplar and an abundance of birch. The black-water murky lagoon separating them from the hill they need to climb to the camp necessitates a tricky crossing over a collection of logs. Near the top of the hill she gets her first glimpse inside the camp and calculates a dozen tents in a clearing and one long, low log house set apart from the rest. There are a few cabins, shacks really, nearer the woods. An enormous fire pit in the middle of the camp is where all the action is—animal skins are fastened to frames by the fire—to dry, she supposes—women are cleaning fish and dogs are hungrily lapping up the refuse the women toss to the ground. All at once the visitors are noticed.
People come from all directions—little ones, old men,young girls and their mothers and grandmothers and the yapping dogs gather by the fire looking toward them.
Walker tells her the man coming toward them is Chief Francis Julian. The hearty greeting the two men exchange makes it obvious that they have known each other for some time. Charlotte is transfixed. The frightening tales she has heard of savages—scalping, raiding, stealing, pillaging—are suspended when Chief Julian tells her she is welcome at the camp.
W IOCHE IS NOT AMONG the people who gather around the fire. He’s carefully concealed, watching the English commodore and this strange woman by his side. He rubs Atilq’s head to sooth his own anger when he hears the English words. He knows Chief Julian speaks the commodore’s language because it’s good for trade with the English, who rarely learned the language of any other. But it rankles—this deferring to the foreign men. As the chief’s appointed traveller, his job is not to trade the pelt of the beaver or the hide of a moose. He trades information for the chief from camp to camp in the Mi’kmaq region, information that increasingly concerns the white man standing in this camp. Wioche had long known the language of the French as the French had been the powerful strangers in the time of his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather. The Salmon People spoke in their own language to the French, whose little brothers
les Acadiens
had lived in these woods and fished these waters so long. Wioche reluctantly learned to speak the English white
I T’S MID-MORNING when Charlotte sees the Indians approaching. Eight maybe ten, walking down the long path that leads from the forest on the hillside to Alston Point. They are carrying something—furs perhaps, piled on a tarpaulin that’s slung over two poles. She’s anxious to be present when the commodore goes out to greet them, but a residual fear still lingers so she waitsand spies on them from a distance. One speaks to the commodore in English. They want to trade the goods they carry for the molasses and rum he brought on the schooner. There’s a lot of talking, must be the way they make the trade, she thinks. At last, the exchange is made. She has lost her chance to speak to an Indian and sulks about it when the commodore returns to the house. He tells her that he has to go to the camp to meet with their leader, Chief Francis Julian, later in the afternoon and that she can go with him if she likes.
He has no special instructions for her while they walk the short distance to the camp except to say the Indians are known as the People of the Salmon and are respected for their medicinal remedies. The camp is situated at the top of a hill that overlooks the harbour on one side and the bay on the other. Walker explains, “It’s a fine location for a camp, high enough to be dry but close enough to the water below to have easy access to the canoes and a fresh-water lagoon that empties into the harbour immediately below the camp.”
Closer now, she can see that the camp is surrounded by trees—spruce, poplar and an abundance of birch. The black-water murky lagoon separating them from the hill they need to climb to the camp necessitates a tricky crossing over a collection of logs. Near the top of the hill she gets her first glimpse inside the camp and calculates a dozen tents in a clearing and one long, low log house set apart from the rest. There are a few cabins, shacks really, nearer the woods. An enormous fire pit in the middle of the camp is where all the action is—animal skins are fastened to frames by the fire—to dry, she supposes—women are cleaning fish and dogs are hungrily lapping up the refuse the women toss to the ground. All at once the visitors are noticed.
People come from all directions—little ones, old men,young girls and their mothers and grandmothers and the yapping dogs gather by the fire looking toward them.
Walker tells her the man coming toward them is Chief Francis Julian. The hearty greeting the two men exchange makes it obvious that they have known each other for some time. Charlotte is transfixed. The frightening tales she has heard of savages—scalping, raiding, stealing, pillaging—are suspended when Chief Julian tells her she is welcome at the camp.
W IOCHE IS NOT AMONG the people who gather around the fire. He’s carefully concealed, watching the English commodore and this strange woman by his side. He rubs Atilq’s head to sooth his own anger when he hears the English words. He knows Chief Julian speaks the commodore’s language because it’s good for trade with the English, who rarely learned the language of any other. But it rankles—this deferring to the foreign men. As the chief’s appointed traveller, his job is not to trade the pelt of the beaver or the hide of a moose. He trades information for the chief from camp to camp in the Mi’kmaq region, information that increasingly concerns the white man standing in this camp. Wioche had long known the language of the French as the French had been the powerful strangers in the time of his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather. The Salmon People spoke in their own language to the French, whose little brothers
les Acadiens
had lived in these woods and fished these waters so long. Wioche reluctantly learned to speak the English white
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