Mattie Mitchell (7 page)

Howley was silent for a while. “Do you think the Red Indians
are still with us, Matthieu?” he asked suddenly.

The fire crackled. Small, black rivulets lapped gently along
the beach's edge. The fire glow caught the waves, making them
glitter like beaded lace. Behind them, where the beach ended,
a great, dark, virgin forest reached into the heavens. Above the
trees, glittering stars twinkled and shone. The soft summer night
breeze brought to their ears a sighing, gently rushing sound. It
was the river that ran unseen into the lake through a deep-wooded
canyon off to their left. A pair of loons cried out on the dark lake.
Somewhere above them snipes hunted, their trilling cries rising
and fading. A mysterious wilderness feeling, an unexplained
ancient spirit, had come stealing along.

Howley felt uncomfortable and kept staring into the fire. But
Mattie Mitchell looked at the whispering waves that sparkled
and shone when they crossed the fire-path and disappeared into
blackness after they passed the man-made light. When Mattie
spoke, his voice sounded reluctant at first, but soon it resumed
the cadence that was his alone. Sitting beside the lake where the
Beothuk people had once lived, and with the soft summer spirit
listening all around them, Mattie told Howley the Mi'kmaq story
of Santu, which had been passed down to him by the elders of
his people.

“In time long pas' my people don't come 'ere,” he began,
indicating with his hand the huge lake that stretched away in the
darkness. “Mi'kmaq 'ave saying. Red man's dat way, Mi'kmaq
dis way.” Mattie pointed in a generally eastern direction for the
Beothuk and a westerly one for the Mi'kmaq.

“I nivver see Red Indian. I find ver' many ol' trails not made
by Mi'kmaq. One time I find ver' strange wigwam by big river.
No one live dere.” Mattie stirred the campfire again and appeared
to be uneasy.

“Sometime I 'ear soft footfall behind me. No man's dere.
Sometime I feel spirit in nighttime. Like dis night. Red man's
ghos', maybe.” Mattie turned his head and looked all around the
black outer rim where the firelight could not reach, as if expecting
to see something. Howley knew Mattie was a very spiritual man.
He also knew he had a dread of ghosts. It was the only thing that
Mattie Mitchell feared.

Mattie spoke again, his voice quieter but steady. “Santu born
'ere by dis water my people call Red Pond,” he said. “Santu's
mother Mi'kmaq woman. She lie down on beach in summertime
wit' Beothuk man. Maybe dis beach!” Mattie looked all around
again. “Mi'kmaq woman 'ave girl chil'. Call her Santu. Santu
call her father ‘Kop.' Dis Mi'kmaq name fer beaver root grow
in water. Dis root red like Beothuk man. Mi'kmaq woman, Red
Indian man's child 'ave Mi'kmaq blood an' Beothuk blood.”
He paused in his story and glanced at the sprawling figure of
Howley, sensing the man's doubt in the tale. “Santu leave dis
place long time ago. She 'ave chil' wit' Beothuk blood.” And
with that, Mattie rose from the beach and walked past the fire
glow. His tall figure disappeared in the dark.

MATTIE MITCHELL AND JAMES HOWLEY
left the “Red Pond” the
very next morning. They traversed the Victoria and the Lloyd's
River systems. Mattie led the way. While Howley sketched his
maps and entered the geology of the land, Mattie hunted and
fished and provided for them both.

They crossed the rivers and the valleys of this wild land again
and again over the next two months. They reached the open
caribou barrens of Newfoundland's interior on the south coast, and
on a cold, foggy October 27, they stepped tired and hungry onto
the white beaches near the fishing outport of Burgeo. Howley's
ragged black beard hid most of the sores from the hordes of biting
flies, “That forever feasted with great relish on my ‘White' blood,
yet appeared to dislike the ‘Red' blood of my companion.”

When they finished the expedition, Howley took away
numerous books filled with information about the Newfoundland
wilderness that would be used by generations to come. Howley's
name would live forever in the many volumes describing his
adventures. A town in the forested heart of the island he loved
took his name and still bears it today.

But the man who showed him the way across this vast,
unknown wilderness, and who hunted and foraged for their camp
on this venture, was forgotten.

Years later, American anthropologist Frank Speck would
verify Mattie's tale. Speck interviewed an Indian woman in
Gloucester, Massachusetts, who told him her father was an
Indian from the island of Newfoundland. Her name was Santu.
The woman appeared to be approximately seventy-five years of
age. This would mean she had been born around 1835. The last
known recorded Beothuk was the woman Shanawdithit. She died
in 1829.

Santu told Speck her father was a full-blooded Beothuk
man from the “Red Pond” of Newfoundland. Santu called the
Beothuk Meywe'djidjk, meaning “Red People.” Her father's
name was “Kop” and her mother was a Mi'kmaq woman. Santu
remembered her father very well. She said he squeezed the juice
from the red root that grew there and smeared it all over his body,
even his loins. They also knew where to find the red earth, which
was also used to dye their bodies. The dye would last for half a
year.

Santu said her father, Kop, ate meat half-roasted on a stick.
He killed caribou with bow and arrows. The arrow that killed the
caribou was sacrificed to the animal's spirit and never used again.
They travelled to the coast in the springtime, she said, where
they hunted
si'kane'su
—whales—using arrows and spears. She
remembered being wrapped in a small blanket or
tu
as a child.
The woman also told Speck she remembered being bundled in
with dogs to keep warm on cold nights.

She still remembered a few words of her father's language.
They called rain
gau
. A woman was
be'nam
. When the Beothuk
be'nam
were in their
menses
, they were not permitted to step over
a hunter's snowshoes, or even his tracks, for fear of casting a bad
spirit upon his hunting. A very fat person was called a
gu'wa
. She
even recalled the Beothuk word
se'ko
, which meant “prayer.”

The Beothuk were constantly under attack by the white man
from across the sea, according to Santu. Her father, Kop, had
been raised by the Mi'kmaq after his people had all been killed
by the whites.

Santu had gone to Nova Scotia by canoe. She married a
Mohawk Indian and lived in New Brunswick for a while. When
her husband died, she married a Mi'kmaq chieftain who was
called Toney. Speck interviewed Santu's son, Joe Toney, who told
him the same story of the Beothuk man who was his grandfather.
His mother had told him the tale over and over again. Joe Toney
died in Nova Scotia. He was believed to be 102 years old.

When Howley read the article by Speck, he remembered
a warm summer night on Mattie Mitchell's “Red Pond.” Most
of all he regretted his own doubt in a tale that wasn't properly
recorded. He suddenly wondered how many more untold tales
Mattie Mitchell had “recorded” in his head.

MATTIE MITCHELL SAW NO OTHER MAN
through the long, cold
winter. He walked alone over his own snowy, unmarked trails.
He established new ones. And always he was the vigilant hunter
and consummate trapper. Mattie was as much a part of the land
he walked as were the animals he hunted.

His mind held no fear of the trackless wilderness, nor did the
long winter night cause him the dread experienced by most of the
white men he knew. For him it was simply a dark part of his day,
a time for cleaning his furs and mending his garments, a time for
silent, much-needed rest.

On blustery days he stayed near his shelter, packing the
falling snow again and again around the base and partway up the
wall of his wigwam, until the strongest wind could not penetrate
it. When the terrible dry cold of the long winter nights set in,
the wigwam suddenly turned frigid when the fire died. On such
nights, Mattie drank all the water he could hold before “turning
in.” His swollen bladder always awoke him just in time to add
more fuel to the dwindling fire.

To add further insulation against the winter chill, he hung
over the inside of his door the partly cured hide of a huge
mui'n
,
a black bear. The hide measured longer than Mattie himself.
He had spent hours at night flensing the fat and blood from the
big hide. He soaked it in the nearby stream and had allowed the
minnows to pick at the last tiny bits of fat until the skin was
clean. However, the hide still glistened when the firelight shone
on it, turning the tips of the hairs silver.

The hide should fetch a good price on the coast, he figured,
although he never knew from one year to the next what money
he would receive for his furs. There was one furrier in the Bay of
St. George who always gave him a fair price, and although it was
far to walk—if he couldn't get a boat ride down the coast with
one of the local fishermen, a rare event—Mattie would take his
furs nowhere else.

But for now the bear skin would break the draft from his door.

Mattie relished the story of the bear hunt he planned to tell
the village children. He seldom talked much with the adults,
especially the whites, who for the most part rarely spoke to him
at all. But the children were different, Indian as well as white.
They always came running to hear his “trapline tales” when he
came walking in to the village at the end of each winter. And
Mattie never disappointed them.

But it hurt him deeply one evening when a young, blue-eyed
white boy with yellow hair, who had been listening with the others,
was called home by the relentless shouts of his mother. Mattie
heard his angry mother say plainly, her voice carrying on the quiet
evening air, “I told you to stay away from dat filthy Injun.”

With his usual stoic manner, Mattie bore the taunt, like all of
the others he had endured, and said nothing.

THE STORY OF THIS BEAR HUNT HAD
begun nearly a year
ago, on a late spring morning. The days were getting longer
and warmer. The snow was beginning to melt. Geese could be
seen flying in wedges against the evening sky, their honking
resounding through the hills as they headed north. The nights
were getting shorter, but they were still cold enough to freeze the
snow.

It was the time of year when a man could walk over the
crusted snow without need for snowshoes. It was a time relished
by all trappers, since great distances could be covered in a day. It
was nearly time to leave the mountains, but Mattie searched early
each morning for one more thing. He carried his snowshoes on
his back. If he found what he was looking for it would take him
far away, and he had no intention of being forced to walk home
without them on snow weakened by the sun.

He found exactly what he was looking for on the second
morning of his search. Imprinted in the snow's surface were the
tracks of a very large black bear. The print that had broken the
crust was bigger than Mattie's fully spread hand.

He followed the tracks for just a few minutes. The bear had
passed here not long ago. It had been running from tree to tree
and paying extra attention to several decayed stumps that it had
ripped open. Obviously the bear was very hungry. Mattie had no
intention of following the animal at all, though by its spoor he
knew it was not a nursing mother, but a male. Its hide was at its
worst this time of year and its flesh would be lean and tasteless.
The long winter had sapped the animal of its fat reserves. Mattie
turned and began back-tracking the bear.

It was easy enough to do. The bear had left a clear but very
twisted trail. There wasn't one deadfall or one exposed stump
rising up through the snow that the animal hadn't searched
thoroughly for food. Mattie figured the bear had come out of its
winter den that very morning, and he wanted to find it.

The tracks led him in a general direction toward a high ridge
in the distance. He wanted to leave the spoor and cut straight for
it, but he couldn't take the chance. Maybe the bear had come
from a different direction altogether. He had been fooled before,
so now he kept on the tracks. Sometimes they circled and crossed
over themselves. He followed them for more than four miles
before he knew he was nearing the den.

The spoor led up over an imposing slope that faced south. The
warming sun had melted most of the snow away from the place,
exposing a wide, talus rubble that had long ago foundered down.
Mattie climbed up over the rock slide and was soon standing
on a very wide ledge. Over the years, huge boulders had fallen
from the hill above, one on top of the other, which he figured had
caused the talus slide.

Some of the winter snows had fallen among the boulders, but
several feet of them remained visible. This furrow had taken more
than its share of drifting snow. It took a while before he found the
den opening, so carefully was it hidden. The bear had walked
around the site many times before it had finally left the area. Its
tracks were everywhere. The smell gave its den site away. It was
a heady, musky odour like no other. It wasn't a sharp, tangy, eye-burning scent like castor, or the throat-sticking gland smell from
the stag caribou that could sometimes be confused for another
animal. This was a strong smell that a man would never forget as
being “bear smell.”

To get out of its winter home, the bear had pushed aside a
mix of boughs and sticks, clumps of moss, and straggly yellow
grasses, all of which it had pulled over the opening just before
last winter's big snowfall. The “doorway” was big enough for
Mattie to squeeze through on his belly, but the debris the bear had
piled up in front of the den allowed very little light in, and Mattie
wriggled back out without getting a good look inside.

Standing up, he studied the way he had come while following
the bear's tracks. He would not be returning to his camp the same
way.

Walking down over the rock avalanche, he stopped and
looked around. He would come back in late autumn to hunt the
bear. He knew that if he came back here again and there was little
or no snow at all, the place would look much different. Turning
his head slowly, he took in every detail of the place. And then he
walked back to his wigwam.

In the early days of the next trapping season, Mattie set out
for the bear den. The sky looked like a storm was brewing. He
hoped he had timed it right. The going was much harder than it
had been in the spring. He walked in a straight line as much as
the terrain allowed. Twice he had to veer away from his course
to get around small ponds that had not frozen solidly enough for
safe travel. By late evening he reached the talus slope below the
cave where the bear had sheltered from the freezing cold of the
winter past.

Mattie wondered if his long walk had been in vain. Maybe
the bear had not returned here this year. If it had, it would be
days before the animal decided to enter the den. But a heavy
snowstorm this time of year would decide for the bear, and the
sky looked ready to snow. Mattie had seen the big bears foraging
for food even in mid-January. However, when a big snow came
and made food hard to find, even this early in the season, they
always “denned up.”

Mattie was prepared to wait. He wanted to catch the bear
near its den. During his walk he had crushed the green needles of
the white spruce into his hands and smeared their pungent scent
all over his clothing several times. It was his proven method of
approaching game undetected.

He would have to be extremely wary. Black bears had poor
eyesight, but their sense of hearing and their incredible sense of
smell more than compensated for that. They could detect and
identify the wind-borne scent of food miles away. They especially
hated the smell of humans, and when they sensed it they made
every effort to avoid its source.

The full carcass of an adult black bear would keep Mattie in
fat for frying and tallow for light, and proved a ready supply of
delicious meat for most of the winter. The animal's fur, which
would now be at its prime, was another bonus. For now, though,
Mattie wanted bear meat. He loved the taste of it.

Mattie knew the bear would disappear inside its den for
the winter after the first big snow. He knew of white trappers
who shot the bears, males and nursing females alike, while they
slept inside their caves. But Mattie Mitchell always called it the
coward's way of hunting, and he was no coward.

He decided not to climb the scree slope. To do so quietly
would be difficult, and if the bear was in the area, an unusual
sound would alert it and make it that much more vigilant. Mattie
knew no one had been here since he had left several months
ago. He hoped the bear was feeling safe and, with a full belly,
lethargic.

Downwind and off to the side of the talus was a thick copse
which he hoped would conceal him on his way up to the ledge.
When he approached it he found it did indeed provide some
cover. This was a much easier way up over the ridge.

But the bear had thought so, too. Twisting its way through the
gnarled brush and tangled trees was its well-used trail. It wasn't
easy going for a man of Mattie's height. The bear, walking on all
fours, had fashioned a trail fairly close to the ground. Besides,
Mattie considered, he would surely leave his man scent, no
matter how hard he tried to disguise it. He decided to abandon
this course of action.

It was hard, slow going, but he stealthily made his way up
through the ravine, parallel to the bear lead. The low scrub spruce
and thorny bushes struggled for growth beneath short, twisted,
naked yellow birches. Here in the relative shelter of the cliff there
was no more than a skim of snow.

The floor of the steep ravine was strewn with rocks of all
sizes, with only a sparse layer of wet, clinging soil. This was a
snarly, tangled place to get through quietly, but he finally reached
the edge of the boulder train above, where no trees grew.

At first he thought he had been mistaken as he peered
carefully out of his cover. When he had been here last there had
been at least seven feet of snow on the ground. The place looked
different now, as he knew it would. But then he smelled the
heady bear odour, and with his nose directing him, he saw the
den's opening.

The hole between the tumbled grey boulders looked bigger
than it had in the winter. The bear had dragged a pile of debris and
spread it all around the entry. Birch trees the thickness of Mattie's
forearm had been broken and chewed off and dragged to the site.
Green fir saplings, as well as fir boughs torn from low-hanging
trees, last year's dried boughs with brown needles clinging to
them weakly, clumps of yellow-green moss and fallen leaves,
mud, and a few rocks littered the area. All was in readiness for
the bear to crawl inside, pull the debris over the opening, and rest
up for the coming winter.

This was a cleverly chosen place for the animal to hibernate.
The small space between the opening and the gathered refuse
was angled toward the den. The beast would merely have to reach
out, and with one easy pull, the debris would tumble toward the
“doorway.” The falling snow would not only disguise its winter
resting place, but seal the bear from the outside world for months.

All of this Mattie could see from his hidden vantage point.
He had seen many such places before, but he had never witnessed
such a large pile or such large items comprising such a collection
before. This was no ordinary bear! He was sure of it.