As Long as the Rivers Flow (2 page)

The guests took off their parkas, unlaced and removed their moosehide boots, and settled down to relax on the bed. Isaac dug out his can of Old Chum pipe tobacco, and soon the two couples were sipping hot tea, smoking their pipes and gossiping.

As soon as she could, Mary excused herself and set about making supper.

“You’re in luck. I’ve got a rabbit stew already warming up on the back of the stove. We’ll have that with some bannock and fried fish.” With her kerchief holding her hair in place, she cheerfully mixed Robin Hood flour, Maple Leaf Tenderflake lard, Royal baking powder, Sifto salt and ice-cold lake water in a tin bowl to make fried bannock in a heavy, fire-blackened, cast iron frying pan. The first course prepared, she handed it around, encouraging everyone to eat it while it was still hot and greasy, and started work preparing a large, fresh pickerel she had caught that morning while ice-fishing.

“Let me help you,” the visiting wife said. “You shouldn’t have to do all that work yourself.”

“No, no, please sit down, you’re my guest,” Mary told her. “I can’t tell you how happy I am you’re here. The winter is so long and we never see anyone.”

Mary scaled, gutted and cleaned the fish, cut it into fillets and used the same pan to fry them in bubbling lard. When it was golden brown and crispy, she called everyone to the rough, handmade table and served a meal that Martha would never forget: rabbit stew, fried fish and more bannock on tin plates with mugs of sweetened tea and Carnation evaporated milk in a room lit by the soft yellow light of a coal oil lamp and smelling of freshly scraped and curing hides, wood smoke and pipe tobacco.

It was time to get down to some serious visiting and Martha climbed up on the always welcoming and comfortable lap of her
father and listened attentively and quietly as the grown-ups talked.

Beginning with the subject that interested them the most, the men engaged in some low-key bragging about how many beaver, marten, mink and muskrat they had trapped that winter. They moved on to talk about blizzards that had blown up when they were far from home, about shelters they had thrown together to ride out storms, about waking up in the mornings to dig themselves out into brilliant sunshine, and about fierce wolverines, pound for pound the most powerful animals in the bush, raiding their traplines, stealing bait, springing traps and never being caught.

“But no matter how tough things are for us now,” Isaac said, “things were worse for the ancestors before the arrival of the Hudson’s Bay Company. They had no market for their furs and no guns and axes and all the things we take for granted today. The summers when everyone got together would have been the best time of the year since there was fish to eat for the entire community at Cat Lake. But I don’t know how the families made it through the winters out in the bush all by themselves. Up here in the north, the people didn’t have any wild rice or maple sugar to store away like our cousins, the Anishinabe to the south. It would have been hard for the hunters to bring down enough moose and deer with their spears and bows and arrows in the deep snow to feed their families and they would have had to rely on rabbits, beaver, squirrels and any small game they could get their hands on. No wonder not many people lived more than thirty winters in those days.”

The women said nothing for a while and then asked the men whether they thought they would get enough money from the trader for their furs to pay their debts and outfit themselves for the next year. The men did not know and changed the subject to hunting.

“I got two deer last fall,” said Isaac. “They were pretty skinny and we don’t have much meat left in our cache. I guess we’ll have to
live on rabbits and fish. We could have a tough time feeding ourselves before we make it back home.”

“I’m okay this year,” said the visiting trapper. “Shot a big bull moose some time ago and have plenty of meat stored away. Last year it was a different story. Couldn’t get any big animals and it was a bad year for rabbits. When the thaw came, we had no meat left. I couldn’t even go fishing, the ice was so soft and dangerous. Thankfully, I stumbled across a bear that was still hibernating and it was easy to kill him. Sure saved the family from going hungry or even worse. I offered a sacrifice of tobacco and a prayer to its spirit master to be sure he wasn’t offended.”

Isaac reflected for some time on what had been said, and puffing studiously on his pipe, told an old story about someone from the reserve who had not paid proper attention to the rituals he was supposed to follow when he killed an animal for food. The spirit of the animal had become angry, he said, and had placed a curse on the hunter making it impossible for him to bring down other game and his family had starved.

“The old folks were right,” the visitor said, “when they said there were two worlds, the one we live in, and the Skyworld—the one we can’t see, where Nanabush lives with the spirits of the dead.

“I know some Anishinabe people today don’t agree with the old wisdom. But they’re mainly people who spend too much time mixing with whites and believe everything the missionaries tell them.”

“Those of us who live on the land know better,” said Isaac. “There are things out here that the people on the outside will never understand. I never feel alone because Gitche Manitou is present everywhere—in Mother Earth, Father Sky, Grandfather Sun, Grandmother Moon, the stars, the trees, the plants, the rain, the snow, the streams, the lakes, the trees and the rocks.”

“There’s something else. I’ve always thought the elders were right when they said the Anishinabe people were related to the animals.”

“I wonder what it’d be like to visit the Skyworld,” said the visitor.

“You’ll know soon enough when you die.”

“I mean, now, when I’m still alive.”

After several more puffs on his pipe, Isaac said, “Only the shamans had the power to travel to the Skyworld and come back alive. And the missionaries drove them away long ago. That’s too bad, because they helped people. If you were sick in your body or in your head, they could travel to the other world and find ways to cure you.”

“I’ve heard that,” said the visitor. “Did you know that the shamans were the people who painted those Thunderbirds, fish and animals on that rock wall on the other side of Cat Lake back home? Nobody wants to talk about it, but some of those pictures have great power. There’s one place, I bet you know it, where there’s a reddish-brown image of the ancestors paddling a canoe. It’s really spooky.”

“I know it,” said Isaac. “I believe you. I’ve been over there at night when I could’ve sworn I heard drumming coming from inside that rock wall. Gives you a strange feeling. I deal with it by putting tobacco in a crack in the wall under the canoe and by praying to Gitche Manitou whenever I pass by. Also helps with the fishing.”

Several long months later, the lake in front of the cabin was black with rotten ice and the sky was filled with formations of honking Canada geese flying north. One night as she lay between her parents in bed, Martha heard the sound of the south wind in the black spruce trees, and her father murmuring to her mother, “It won’t be long now. It won’t be long now.”

When she got up in the morning, the ice was gone from the lake, and grey, cold waves were beating on the shore. It was time to return to the reserve. With Martha helping the best she could, her
parents pushed the canoe into the water, loaded it with furs, utensils and other things they would need back at Cat Lake, and attached the old outboard motor to the stern. Martha took her place in the bow, her favourite spot, her mother settled down in the centre and her father took a seat beside the motor, his loaded gun beside him in case he came across game. As they always did when departing for the reserve in the spring, they left their cabin unlocked and stocked with supplies to help any lost hunter in need of shelter who happened by.

Two days later, after forcing their way upstream to Cat Lake, they saw the reserve off in the distance. As they neared the shore, friends and relatives who had already made it home from their winter homes in the bush came out of their cabins to greet them.

“Welcome home.”

“How was the trapping?”

“There are still a few families who haven’t made it back yet.”

“Martha, how big you’ve become!”

“Come and see us when you get settled.”

After unloading the canoe and moving into their summer cabin, Martha’s parents, their daughter in tow, visited the Hudson’s Bay Company store to sell their furs. Martha looked on as the trader, a white man, graded the winter’s take. He entered a figure in a big black book and winked at the little girl.

“Looks like your daddy did really well this year,” he said in broken Anishinaabemowin. “Maybe he’ll buy you a treat!”

Martha nodded her head solemnly, acknowledging the attention the trader was giving her. She knew him well for he had lived in the small community for as long as she could remember and had married a local woman. Although he could be gruff at times, he was well liked by everyone because he had made an effort to learn Anishinaabemowin and was good to his wife and children.

“Another season like that,” he said, turning to her father, “and you’ll be out of debt. Now have a good look around. I got lots of new stock. All the usual traps, guns, ammunition, fishing gear, axes, clothing and food. I’ve also got something else that should interest you. Some new Johnson outboard motors have come in. You could use one. That old piece of junk you’ve been using could break down completely and leave you stranded some day. Or worse. It could conk out when you’re in the rapids. You could get yourself killed! Whatdyasay?”

“Maybe another year,” said Isaac. “When I’ve paid off all my bills.”

“Look at these sultana raisins and dried fruit,” the man continued, ignoring Isaac’s comment. “My wife tells me they go really good mixed in bannock. Better get some now before I run out. Take anything you want. Your credit’s good here.”

Isaac poked around for a while in the tiny building that smelled of furs, coal oil and chewing tobacco, and picked out a small bag of hard candy.

“These are for you,” he said to his daughter. “We’ll come back later to stock up on food and other supplies for the winter.”

Spring turned into Martha’s last summer of innocence before she was sent off to residential school, and she experienced to the full the uninhibited joy of shouting and laughing with children she had not seen since the preceding fall. Every day, she ran, played tag and spent endless hours in the water swimming and splashing. At times, she joined her friends on canoe rides. Occasionally, an adult would take her with him when he went fishing. She was never home until after dark but her parents never worried.

Then it was time for the annual visit of the Indian agent. More than half a century before, a flotilla of canoes, each one flying a Union Jack from its bow, had arrived at the summer encampment
of the Cat Lake people. The boats were filled with Mounties, in full ceremonial dress, and self-important white officials wearing pith helmets and draped in mosquito netting as if they were on an expedition into the heart of Africa.

“Your great father, His Majesty King Edward VII,” they told the people, “is concerned about the well-being of his Native children who reside here in the northern wilderness. As a sign of his immense compassion, he has asked us to come here to sign a treaty with you that will protect you for all time. In return for ceding your rights to this land, every man, woman and child will be immediately handed a cash payment and a reserve will be set aside for your exclusive use.

“All you have to do,” they said to the people who did not know how to read and write and who had no concept of rights and land ownership as interpreted by the commissioners, “is to put your mark on this document and each year a representative of the Crown will visit you and give you more money.”

The people did so, unknowingly authorizing outsiders to take the mineral and forest wealth of their lands and game wardens to enter their traditional territory to interfere with their trapping and hunting way of life. And every year that followed, the people of Cat Lake held a celebration to mark the anniversary of the treaty and the visit to their community of the Indian agent to pay the treaty money.

Preparations for the festivities of 1962 began when the men draped sheets of canvas over a frame of birch saplings to make a tent big enough to accommodate everyone and moved stoves and tables into place. The children collected kindling and firewood and picked blueberries and raspberries to make into pies. The women set to work, preparing in advance communal meals of boiled moose meat cut into strips, venison stew, fried fish, berries, bannock and tea as
well as local delicacies such as boiled
tripe de roche
, a gooey favourite made from dry black moss mixed with berries and well-cooked fish pounded into powder with everything liberally drenched in fish oil.

On the morning of the big day, the children gathered on the shore and scanned the sky for the arrival of the float plane carrying their guests. Eventually, someone with sharp eyesight saw a speck far off in the sky.

“It’s them. The
zhaagnaash
are coming! The white men are coming!”

As the float plane approached the lake, the Indian agent, a short, trim, red-haired bureaucrat in his mid-forties with a handlebar moustache and nervous, pale blue eyes, was sitting beside the pilot trying to pick out, from the mass of green foliage along the shore, the cluster of log cabins that comprised the settlement.

A self-made man, the Indian agent had left school and home in the depths of the Great Depression when his father lost his factory job and could no longer feed his family. After years of riding the rails looking for work and living by his wits, he joined the army when war broke out in 1939, discovered he had a talent for managing men, progressed through the non-commissioned officer ranks, and was eventually ordered to report for duty as a drill sergeant at Camp Ipperwash, a newly constructed recruit training base on the shore of Lake Huron in southwestern Ontario. He had relished converting squads of awkward farm boys and factory workers into polished, well-drilled soldiers who responded like puppets to his shouted commands on the parade grounds.