Keeper'n Me (24 page)

Anyway, what I was meaning to say was that the land is a feeling. The reason the Indians want all these land claims settled is on accounta they wanna protect their connection with the land. It isn't on accounta they want all of North America back like some people believe. Keeper says nobody in their right mind wants something back that someone else has already wrecked. They just wanna protect their connection. Land is the most sacred thing in the Indian way of seeing. It's where life comes from and all the teachings and philosophy that kept Indians alive through everything that happened to them all over all these years comes from the land. Lose
that connection you lose yourself, according to most people around here. Lose that connection you lose that feeling of being a part of something that's bigger than everything. Kinda tapping into the great mystery. Feeling the spirit of the land that's the spirit of the people and the spirit of yourself. That's what I was learning all along but I needed to get a lot closer to it and that's kinda what happened that second fall I was home.

See, there's something I do even now that I first done that second fall. I don't know why I started really, except that it felt like a good idea at the time. Keeper says it was the first stirrings of that woman side of me calling out directions. Intuition, the gift of the mother. Anyway, it's kinda become a personal ritual and every fall at the same time everyone here knows that I'm gonna disappear across the lake in a canoe for four days of living on the land all alone. Usually I paddle in for a whole day, find a good campsite, set up and just wander around out there, looking around, studying things. There's a huge silence you discover when you get way beyond things like houses and roads and motors. It can be kinda scary at first but once you get used to it it's like the most beautiful sound you ever heard and it fills up your insides until you think you're gonna pass out from the pressure. A beautiful, roaring silence. A silence that's full of everything. When your ears get used to it you start to hear things you never ever heard in your life. Things you never knew were there. Things like the whispers of old people's voices when the wind blows through the trees.
Little gurgles and chuckles like babies when the water from a creek rolls over the rocks. The almost holy sound of an eagle's wings when it flaps above you, kinda like he's breathing on you. Even something as quiet as your paddle moving through the water's got a silky sound like the ripple of a lady's shawl in a fancy dance. Far-off thunder sounding like a big drum in the sky and all the snaps and crackles, rubbings and scrapings that goes on in the bush at night when you can't see anything. A thick blanket of sounds that tells you that darkness has a life too. A beautiful silence. The most beautiful music I ever heard. Full of all the notes of life and living we miss when we get away from it too long. The sounds that connect you to yourself and your life.

That's why I go. On accounta when I get back and start moving around with people again I always got that silence to fall back on when things get strange. That silence gets to be a part of me by me going out there and being a part of it. I didn't know that then, that first fall. All I knew was that there was a feeling telling me it was a good idea to go. I wanted to head for that area just beyond the other side of the lake where I was born. The traditional land my grampa trapped. The beginnings, I guess. Something inside me was telling me that I needed to go there. So I talked about it with Keeper and Jackie and Stanley'n Jane to see what they thought and everybody figured it was a good idea.

Course Ma was all worried when I told her. Being a bush woman all her life, Ma knows how tough it is to
get by out there if you don't know what you're doing and how fast things can change out there when you don't know how to read the land or the signs it gives you.

“Sure you wanna go alone, my boy?”

“Hey-yuh. Been spending lotsa time with Gilbert and Charlie this summer. Been watching how they do things and they showed me lots. I'll be okay.”

“How far back you gonna go? Not far, I hope.”

“Kaween,” I said. “No. Not far. Other side of the lake, maybe one portage back, two maybe.”

“Holee. That's far. Lotta wolf an' bear around out there.”

“Hey-yuh. Lot.”

“You know your grampa's old trapline land starts back there?”

“Hey-yuh. That's a big part of the reason I wanna go there. Being home's great, Ma, it really is, but I feel like if I don't go there and see for myself where it all started for me, it's not really gonna be like I've come home at all yet.”

“I know. Us we can only give you parta yourself back here. Help you learn about this place an' us. Yourself. But's a big parta you out there in that bush. Maybe now's the time you went there an' picked it up an' brought it home.”

“Yeah, that's what it kinda feels like. I don't know why I gotta go there. I only know that I do.”

“Still, maybe Jackie oughta go with you first time? Good bush Indyun, that Jackie.”

“Kaween. Jackie's one of the ones said I should go alone in the first place.”

“Really?”

“Hey-yuh. We both figure I'll be okay. And I just kinda need some time alone for a while. To think. Get away from things. Fish. Walk around. Find something.”

She was looking at me kinda different by this time, nodding her head real slow like she does when she starts to understand or see something she missed the first time around. Her eyes were smiling now and she reached out to touch my cheek with one warm brown hand.

“Hey-yuh. I know. Your papa useta do the same thing every year too. Useta just get up real early, load up a canoe and paddle off by himself. Us we never knew where he was going, just that he was going off alone again. Never said much about it when he got back but he was always more, bigger kinda when he got back. You looked just like him there for a minute,” she said, stroking my cheek real soft. “Hey-yuh. Lot. So I guess it's okay. Runs in the family, I guess.”

“Hey-yuh. Jackie said him'n Stanley do that too all the time. Says our uncles go off alone too lots. Jackie says it helps him. Gets him kinda peaceful inside.”

“Yeah. I know. Maybe you ask Keeper sometime to tell you about it. Been a parta what us Indyuns do for a long, long time.”

“So you're not gonna worry?”

“Oh, I'm still gonna worry. Oh yes, me I'll worry. But
I know too that you gotta do it. You'll learn lots out there you're gonna need. Lots.”

“Wanna help me get ready then?”

“ 'Kay. How much you wanna take?”

“Not lots. Wanna travel light.”

“How light is light?”

“Light light. Just what I'm gonna need.”

“ 'Kay then. Only thing is … how you gonna get across that lake with a stove and stereo in that canoe?”

If you ever wanna get the idea of how it feels to fly, all you really gotta do is paddle a canoe alone across a northern lake when it's calm. When there's no wind and no waves it's like moving through glass. You look over the sides and it's like you're suspended above everything. Water so clear you float over the rocks and boulders and logs on the bottom like an eagle over land, seeing the fish kinda scatter and picking out their favorite hiding places as you pass. If you look out over the front it's like a magic curtain of cloud. Big shiny silver curtain that parts with the tip of the canoe, revealing the lake like you've never seen it. Things coming into view all slow and gradual, quiet and peaceful like you're soaring over all of it. Paddle faster and it's like you're flapping your wings harder and the land passing beneath you moves by like a dream. It takes your breath away and really makes it hard to travel very far very fast. One of the rewards of being alone in a canoe early in the morning is that feeling of flying.

I discovered it that first morning that fall. It was one of them foggy mornings when the mist over the lake kinda makes all the sounds sharper and clearer. Me'n Ma could hear loons and herons across the bay and the yap of dogs from somewhere back in the bush like they were right beside us. We could hear Keeper coming even though that old guy moves pretty quiet in the bush, so we weren't surprised when he appeared out of the fog.

“Ahnee,” he called from the top of the steps leading down to the dock behind Ma's. “Minno gezheegut. It's a good day. How's things?”

“It's okay, Keeper. You?” Ma said.

“Oh, not bad. Gonna miss that bacon, Garnet, you make sure and get back okay on accounta I need my breakfast chef.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “You'll find some way of arranging an invitation to someone's for breakfast. What's that you got there?”

“Oh, this?” he said getting that surprised look on his face that he always does when he's about to give something away. “Just somethin' you're gonna need out there. It's not much.”

“Well, what is it?”

“Tobacco, white pieces of cloth, string. That's all.”

“So what do I do with this?”

“Pray.”

“Pray?”

“Hey-yuh. Pray.”

“How?”

“Lots,” he said, and we all laughed.

“No, really. What's it for?”

“It's for the land. You gotta give it back to the land. It's an offering. Gratitude offering. Us we do this. Those of us tryin' to live the Indyun way, we do this couple times a year. Called a tobacco offering. You take this tobacco and you wrap a small pinch of it in these little white pieces of cloth, tie 'em up with string. Make up a long circle of them.”

“Why?”

“Well, it's on accounta us we sometimes forget what all we got to be thankful for. Forget that everythin' comes from the land. Food, home, health, everythin'. So the old ones made this ceremony an' taught everyone to do it. Don't need to be an elder or a teacher to do it, it's for everyone on accounta we all gotta show gratitude to stay humble.

“So you go out there. When you're all set up, you find a place that feels kinda special. Maybe up on a big, high rock or at the foot of a bay. Smudge first. Pray. Then you take that tobacco an' wrap it an' tie it. When you do this you think of somethin' or someone in your life you're grateful for an' say a prayer of thanks. Pray for their happiness, health and harmony. Then you think of somethin' else an' say the same kinda prayer. Keep on like that till you run outta prayers or tobacco. Then you take that circle of prayers you just made an' you leave it in the branches of a tree or at the top of that big rock. Give
those prayers back to the land an' the spirits. Back where they came from.

“Might take you long time. Should. But you take as long as you need, give thanks for everythin'. When you're done you'll feel real good an' you'll treat everyone an' everything with lotsa love an' respect. It's hard to be unloving an' disrespectful towards things you prayed for.”

“Do you do this, Ma?” I asked.

“Hey-yuh. Couple times a year ever since I was a girl. It's good. Keeps you real.”

“Anything else I gotta do?”

“No,” Keeper said. “Just pray for all you're thankful for. It'll be good for you an' it's time you got movin' in this way now. 'Specially where you're goin'. Findin' that special place is not gonna be hard for you, I think.” He handed me the moose-hide pouch.

Ma gave me a big warm hug and looked real proud at me for a long time as I got ready to shove off. I remember feeling like I was about to discover something really big in my life and I couldn't wait to find out what it was.

“ 'Kay then,” I said when I got seated in the canoe. “Be back in four nights, round sundown, I guess.”

“ 'Kay then,” Ma said. “Careful.”

“Hey-yuh. Will be.”

“Oh, an' Garnet,” Keeper said, kinda mischievous. “You gotta try'n light a fire only usin' two sticks when you're out there.”

“I do?”

“Hey-yuh. It's traditional.”

“Really?”

“Hey-yuh. Only for you we're changin' it this time.”

“Yeah?”

“Gonna let one of them sticks be a match!”

I looked back once I got a hundred yards or so out on the lake. They were still standing there with their arms around each other's waist watching me head out across. It's one of those Kodak moments, only these kind we keep in our hearts instead of some photo album. I got the idea that I knew what prayers those first two pouches were gonna be for.

As I paddled across that lake that morning, watching the sun start to burn the mist off the water, it was like seeing the light being born inside me again. By the time I reached the northern shore it was midmorning and I hugged the shoreline as I worked my way east to where I knew a portage to be. That's when I discovered the feeling of flying. I was lost in it for miles. Those who say there's no magic in the world anymore have never taken a solitary paddle on a northern lake in the morning. That feeling of being on a cushion of air was pure magic. Only the shadows of the trees and cliffs on the water kept me earthbound and by the time I reached the cairn of stones that marked the portage, my whole being felt like it could detach itself from earth and soar off somewhere into the wild blue of that morning sky. In a way, I guess, it did.

Watchin' the boy headin' off across that lake that mornin' reminded me of myself one time. I must have been about twelve
.
Me'n the old man been hangin' around together about a year by then. Me I'd learned lots but had a real long way to go yet. Old man told me it was time I went out to feel the power. That's all. Go and feel the power. So we spent a coupla days gettin' me all ready for this trip. It was gonna be four days. Wasn't all romantic like them movies. Me I had a fishin' pole, knife, rifle, food an' blankets, just like the boy's canoe. Them Westerns wanna make you think us Indyuns go out with nothin' but a blanket and spend a long time fastin' in the wilderness. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we do for special reasons like gettin' ready for a big ceremony but most of the time we go out there all alone so we can greet the world again. That's what it's all about. Greetin' the world again. See, us we get all busy with our lives. Gotta go here, go there, do this, do that, all the time. Get so busy we forget to look around an' see the world. Forget to spend time with our best teacher. We start thinkin' maybe we're kinda important or too busy or both. So we go out there where no one else is around an' we sit there. Most of the time that land'll give you something to bring back. No big dreams or visions, although some get lucky an' have them, but mostly you just see somethin' in the land itself that'll get you thinkin' right again. Me, I forgot toilet paper one time an' I seen a vision. Or at least I thought it was. Old man told me, he said, I only see somethin' strange on accounta I was all constipated an' my vision was blurry after four days. Hey, heh, heh. Funny guy, that Harold
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