Mattie Mitchell (6 page)

While the Scotsman mended, Mattie gathered eggs from
the nesting seabirds. After boiling them, he soaked them in sea
water overnight. They would last for days. He caught trout in
the streams and speared flatfish in the shallow waters. He killed
waterfowl with his bow and arrow. Once, Murray watched as he
brought down a curious, slow-flying herring gull with one arrow.
Mattie skinned the bird and, that evening, after he roasted it with
two other seabirds, Murray couldn't taste the difference between
the seagull and the others.

Murray was on his feet again in two days and, with the support
of a crutch made by Mattie, started to hobble his way along. And
with all of his pain, Murray never once complained or asked for
favours from the other man.

He never did seek medical attention for his ailment and
continued with his work for years afterward. But for the rest
of his life Alexander Murray walked with a limp. After his
injury, Murray was offered and gladly accepted the services of
Newfoundland-born geologist James Howley.

JAMES PATRICK HOWLEY WAS BORN IN
St. John's on July 7,
1847. He was a geologist by profession, but as his work with
Murray progressed, he became an excellent surveyor. Using his
carefully described entries recorded in the field by the light of a
smoky lantern and flickering campfire, he also added “Author” as
another of his titles. Howley was Murray's protégé. Murray was
Howley's mentor.

Howley was always a very kind and devout man, courteous,
easygoing, and generally a very pleasant man to be around. He
was uncommonly strong, and walked tirelessly, or, as Mattie
put it with a grin, “Sage ver' strong man. Almos' strong as me,
maybe. 'E walk my walk, too.” Howley and Mattie Mitchell
became good friends and remained together long after Murray
had gone back to his native Scotland.

Howley followed Mattie and trusted the man's amazing
instinct. The geologist used other guides in his travels but could
find no one to be Mattie's equal. He relied on him exclusively
whenever it was possible to avail of the Indian's services.

The two men travelled and explored all along the snarl of
coves and bays and narrow inlets of the Connaigre peninsula
on Newfoundland's rugged south coast. Mattie led the intrepid
geologist around Hermitage Bay to Gaultois Island, where the
Mi'kmaq people had found refuge from the French and English
wars hundreds of years before.

At every night's campfire, James Howley did his best to
teach Mattie Mitchell the mysteries of science. In turn, Mattie
told Howley the ways of his people handed down to him from a
thousand such night fires. And Howley always listened.

With Mattie, Howley paddled in wonderment the length of
the huge glacial fjord of Bay d'Espoir. When they arrived at its
farthest reach into insular Newfoundland, the two stayed for a
time at the Mi'kmaq village of Miawpukek, or Conne River,
where Howley updated his maps.

They were sitting by their campfire just above a gravelly
beach on their last night in the hamlet. The sea was calm here in
this deep bay. The water looked like a calm, black pond and not at
all like the tormented waters of the Atlantic.

Howley was entering detailed accounts of his travels into his
ledger. He frequently wetted the black tip of his pencil between
his lips before each entry. Pausing in his work, he looked across
the bright fire at Mattie and asked him how it was that he could
keep everything so precise in his mind.

“I don't mean the bays themselves. Anyone can remember
big items. What I mean is your keen knowledge of every rock and
shoal and hidden reef on salt water or fresh water, for not only
this coast, but for every coast we have travelled.”

“Don't know why,” said Mattie. “Ever' place I bin stay in my
min' ver' easy.”

Howley bent over his precious book again and turned it to
get better light on the page. “You know, Matthieu, there was an
English hydrographer by the name of Captain James Cook who
mapped this coast hundreds of years ago. I wonder if he too had
a Mi'kmaq man to guide his ship around this coast of so many
treacherous bays.”

Mattie was looking at the black runnels of quiet night water
as they ran along the edge of the beach and didn't answer for a
moment. Then he asked in his quiet way, “'E da same captain
man who cut ears from 'is sailors wit' long knife?”

Howley dropped his pencil in astonishment at the question.
He dragged the long fingers of one hand through his scraggly
beard and drew the other hand over his balding white head. It was
a move Mattie recognized as one Howley made whenever he was
excited or upset.

Cook was the greatest of all explorers. He was the best of
navigators, and cartographer extraordinaire. He had sailed the
world over claiming many firsts for a European. He was stabbed
to death in the Hawaiian Islands by a Hawaiian chieftain while
trying to take their king hostage.

One of Cook's well-known punishments for disobedience—
something he would not abide—was to order one of the ears to be
cut from the offending crew member. Despite his sadistic method
of maiming as a form of punishment, Howley was one of Cook's
greatest admirers.

“How do you know of this, Matthieu?” Howley asked
incredulously. “You could not possibly have read it!”

Despite Howley's obvious excitement, Mattie paused before
answering, as was his way. When he spoke again his voice was
calm and matter-of-fact. “Dere is ol' tale tol' by my people of ver'
pale-skinned captain man. Dey talk dis man ver' long time ago.
Dis man 'ave no 'air on 'is face. 'E come 'ere in great ship wit'
t'ree spars. One time his man flee to our lan'. When captain man
fin' him 'e cut 'is ear off wit' long knife an' t'row in salt sea.”

Howley was speechless for a long time, something that was
unusual for him. When he spoke again he had resumed his calm
demeanour. “Matthieu, I sometimes doubt the words of your oral
history. Yet I wonder about the volumes that will forever remain
hidden.”

They talked then of the long wilderness that lay ahead of them,
of rivers and lakes they would have to cross. And again Howley
wondered how it was that Mattie could know such an immense
area so intimately. He asked Mattie if all of his people were as
adept and knowledgeable with wilderness lore as he. Mattie
stirred the fire with a long, blackened stick before answering.
Flankers rose on invisible heat waves and the fire flared up,
casting shimmering yellow streaks out over the limpid water.

“Ver' many my people good trapper. Some not so good. One
man live east on Akilasiye'wa'kik Quospem. The white man call
dis place Gander Lake. 'Is name Soulis Joe. We meet sometime
on long trail. Talk trail talk. 'E ver' good man. Trap alone like
me. Tall like me, too. Good as me, too—almos'.” Mattie finished
with a grin.

They left Miawpupek in the grey dawning of the next morning
and crossed the southeast arm of the bay in a borrowed canoe.
Mattie led the way, on familiar ground, to where Bay d'Espoir
reached farthest inland. They walked northeast, skirting the
southern banks of the many-angled Jeddore Lake, and camped
by the water the Mi'kmaq called Ahwachanjeesh Pond.

Late one evening, from atop Mount Gabriel, Mattie pointed
out the Annieopsquotch Mountains away to the west, a name
his people used for “Terrible Rocks.” He showed Howley the
direction they would follow in the morning toward the high
Ebbegunbaeg Hill. It was a landmark his people had followed
across the land for years.

That night they camped in the shadow of Ebbegunbaeg, beside
a stream that ran merrily along while the two weary travellers
slept. They left in the morning with Ebbegunbaeg to their backs
and walked west to Meelpaeg Lake, where they explored its
eastern banks for two days.

Resuming their journey, they rounded the north end of
Meelpaeg Lake and left the waters to continue their southerly
flow behind them. From there they set out north and then east
and followed the waterway to Noel Paul's Brook—named after
another Mi'kmaq trapper—into Newfoundland's mightiest of
rivers, the Exploits.

JAMES HOWLEY HAD COME BY SCHOONER
to the Bay of
Exploits in 1875, when he met with Mattie where the mighty
Exploits River runs into the salt sea at Sandy Point.

Across the remotest parts of the island, Howley followed the
Indian where few white men had ever walked before. It was the
longest and most rewarding trek of his geological career. And
when they walked out to the coast on the other side of the island,
the two men were friends.

The two men set out in the heat of the summer midday on
July 3. With Mattie leading the way and with Howley sketching
and scribing his maps, they travelled north and west and finally
south.

They walked along the Exploits waterway, where the Red
Indians came no more. They rafted rivers and ponds and camped
in the short summer nights to rest. On one such night they
were sitting on a wide beach next to a bright campfire on the
western shores of what Mattie called “The Red Pond.” On this
rare occasion he asked Howley a question. “How come ever'one
call us Red Indians? No Red Indian 'ere no more. My skin eart'
colour, not red. We are people of de eart'.”

And so, Howley, who knew much about history and who
had learned more from Mattie Mitchell than he could ever repay,
explained to Mattie how the native Indians of Newfoundland had
come to be called Red Indians. The Europeans, he told him, were
forever after the wealth of the eastern countries. The English and
French, the Spanish Conquistadores, and the Portuguese all sought
the spices and silks and rare jewels of far-off India and Asia. A
journey south past the great bulge of Africa and then east into
the Indian Ocean and beyond sometimes took years to complete.
When it became accepted that the earth was actually round—and
not flat, as most explorers of that day had believed—navigators
believed they could reach the eastern countries by sailing west.

Mattie frowned as he stirred the fire. He squinted in
concentration at this statement from Sage, but he remained quiet.
Howley continued.

“So they sailed west. And they came to this island. Some say
it took them thirty days to get here, some say it was more like
fifty days. In any case it was a far cry from a year's sailing. They
thought for sure they were in India!

“There are even tales of a fierce northern race of seafarers
who came here in long boats with high prows. But they are only
legends handed down and probably not to be believed.”

Howley never noticed the strange look that came over
Mattie's face as he said this. Howley, reclining comfortably on
the sandy beach, sat up straight as he considered how best to
relate the “discovery” of this island to his friend. Staring into
their campfire, he went on.

“When they ‘hove to' in their rolling caravels in some
sheltered cove, somewhere around this island, they found there
were already people living here. The Europeans called them
Indians, and because their skin was painted red, they called them
Red Indians.”

Mattie was staring at Howley as he spoke. His face was a
mask of concentration. Howley could see the man's intelligence
as he digested what he was hearing.

“You know what is amazing, Matthieu? Even when these
early explorers sailed thousands of miles farther south, they still
figured they were in the Indies. They even called islands there
the ‘West Indies.' But what is more incredible is this. They gave
the name ‘Red Indians' to all of the native peoples they came in
contact with. The painted skin colour of the Beothuk Indians of
Newfoundland forever gave the name to a race of native people
that covered an entire continent.”