Mattie Mitchell Read online

  Bringing up the rear of the caravan came the sled dogs, their muscles straining as they pulled the load, some of them with their ribs showing. All had pink tongues bouncing out the sides of their toothy jaws as they plodded along a snow trail broken by the snorting reindeers’ broad hooves.

  To stay ahead of the high-stepping reindeer was impossible, even for Mattie, whose stride was long. At the very start of the journey, the always inventive Mi’kmaq would start off ten or so minutes before the others. This allowed him time to decide on the best trail direction, as well as the safest routes to stay on track, before the reindeer caught up with him. Mattie always feared the animals would step on the backs of his snowshoes if they came too close, even though the lead deer always stopped a few feet behind him as it snorted impatiently.

  As the trip wore on, the reindeer would follow Mattie Mitchell’s every twist and turn and stop whenever he stopped. Their herder and his yapping dogs could move them from behind, but the reindeer would follow no one but the Indian.

  On March 7, by the time the expedition camped for the night near Main Brook Pond, the Laplander Pere Sombie was suffering badly from snow blindness. Mattie made a band from the soft inner bark of a birch tree, cut narrow slits for the eyes, and got the man to tie it around his head. It worked so well the Sami man kept it around his head day and night until the bark finally broke.

  They found out very early about the herding instinct of the reindeer. At every opportunity, the animals would head back toward St. Anthony. At night the party had no choice but to keep a constant watch over them, in four-hour shifts.

  Cole also discovered, on their very first day on the trail, a custom of the Laplanders that caused him a great deal of consternation. The Lap woman and her daughter both rode in a sled called a pulka which their labouring dogs pulled. The pulkas had arrived with the Lap herders and were intended to be used for the trip. They were shaped like barrel staves, no more than a foot high, two feet wide, and less than six feet long. The sleds proved to be totally useless. They worked well in the cold, dry Arctic climate of Lapland, but here on the coast of the ever-changing Atlantic climate, the soft, damp snow kept piling up in front of the sled until the dogs could not pull them.

  As soon as he could make arrangements, Cole replaced them with the Newfoundland komatik. The two women then rode in the komatiks and, despite further arguments from Cole, refused to walk. It was their custom, they told him, and when Cole shouted his protest, they yelled words back at him that his translator, Sundine, could not understand. Cole was sure they were cursing at him.

  They were crossing a large pond on Monday, March 9, when they were surprised to see two dog teams approaching them. Drs. Little and Stewart were returning to St. Anthony from Englee, where they had been attending to several patients.

  The doctors were amazed at the sight of the reindeer walking behind the tall Indian. They talked for a while about the trail ahead and the snow that never seemed to end. The doctors wished Hugh Cole every success with his venture. With a yell to their restless dogs and running behind their komatiks, the two men mushed away to the north. The misshapen pond where they met would take Cole’s name on maps of Newfoundland.

  They walked out to the frozen northwest arm of Canada Bay on March 10 after walking fourteen miles in the teeth of yet another winter storm. The temperature was well below zero, visibility was poor, and everyone—except the bundled women— was tired.

  Cole decided to leave for the outport community of Englee to buy supplies. In spite of the late hour and the poor weather, they started out, with Mattie in the lead. They took no dog team or sled. It was Cole’s intention to buy a sled as well as a small dog team at Englee to haul the grub back.

  Along the way they found several blazed trees and, in a few places where the snow had swept clean, the faint traces of the doctors’ trail. They arrived back in Canada Bay the next day. The snow had stopped but the high winds continued, and with it severe drifting, too bad for further travelling. Cole ordered Aslic Sombie to put an ox—a gelded stag—in harness and break it for pulling while they waited for the wind to abate.

  With the wind finally easing a bit, they left Canada Bay the next morning and made their way southwest over the high hills to Cloudy Brook and camped for the night. They made twelve hard miles on Friday, March 13, after chopping a rough trail through the dense growth along the river. It had rafted up with broken ice, making it impossible to cross.

  One of the local dogs that Cole had bought in Englee harassed the reindeer at every opportunity. Cole had punished the dog for its behaviour once, but, given the chance, the dog always approached the deer with ferocious barks and snarling bites. While they were getting the deer through the narrow trail they had cut, the dog chewed free of its leather harness and slunk away toward the lead animals.

  Mattie heard the dog barking but paid it no heed. The Lap dogs were always barking. Then he heard an unusually vicious, wolf-like snarl coming from behind him. When he turned, the new dog had the lead stag—which had been quietly following Mattie—in a ferocious grip by the hind leg that drew blood.

  With one long step, Mattie reached the animals. Without breaking his stride, he directed a kick at the dog. The rounded front of his snowshoe lashed soundly against several of the dog’s taut ribs and it ran away yapping and crying in pain.

  The frightened lead deer bolted into the woods, snow flying from its legs as it ran. Mattie followed it for a while and then came back to report the attack to Cole, who found the dog cowering behind one of the loaded komatiks. He had intended to beat the dog, but seeing that Mattie’s big foot had inflicted punishment enough, he tied it in place with the other dogs using a heavy rope. It snowed again that night, a blinding, wind-hurled snow that cut into a man’s eyes if he looked into it. When the morning came the crippled stag had returned . . . but thirty of the other reindeer had disappeared!

  MATTIE HELPED THE SAMI HERDER, who had seen dogs inflict wounds on reindeer many times before, make up a kind of poultice for the wounded stag. The animal’s left hind leg between the pastern and the knee was badly torn. Without speaking and using a practical sign language, the two indigenous men used what their people had always used, natural medicine. They found spruce frankum and heated it to a gluey paste. The men chopped through the rough outside bark of a young tamarack tree and scraped off handfuls of the pink, stringy inner bark, which the Sami pounded into a pulp.

  They blended the spruce resin and the tamarack paste together, and applied the compound to the reindeer’s leg, holding the salve in place with a soft bandage of birch bark. When the Sami knelt to administer aid to the deer he was honour bound to protect, the Mi’kmaq Indian, who had killed hundreds of caribou, stood at the animal’s neck and whispered into its twitching ear a language that only he and the deer understood. The deer shivered all over but didn’t once move its injured leg.

  Cole had a terrible row with Aslic, who wanted to stay until the other reindeer returned, even if it took as long as a week. Cole absolutely refused. He believed the deer would return on their own. Besides, the weather was too bad for searching, and added to that fact was the tracking problem. There were caribou in the area, and they would be wasting their time tracking reindeer that could very well be caribou. As soon as the weather permitted, they would move on.

  Late at night on Tuesday, March 17, the wind finally blew itself out. In the morning they went looking for the reindeer. Cole and Sundine returned to camp with nothing, but Mattie, who had Greening and Pere with him, came back with ten of the roving animals. Mattie had found them feeding by a brook five miles away. During the day, Mattie found more of the herd. By mid-afternoon the remainder had returned on their own.

  The evening was clear and bright, so they decided they would move out over the barren hills ahead of them. They kept moving until several hours after dark, when they entered the woods again. Here they stopped for the night. The men smoked their pipes and sat around the fire in temperatures below ten degree
s. When Greening went to check on the herd, two caribou were lying down with the reindeer.

  On this night, Mattie took the middle watch, from midnight to 4: 00 a.m. He walked among the reindeer in the clear, cold night and was amazed at how he sank to his knees in the deep snow without his snowshoes while the deer walked over it. Noticing the two wild caribou milling about with the reindeer, Mattie saw an opportunity to stock up their dwindling supply of meat. He would talk to Cole in the morning about killing the two caribou.

  Back at the campsite, the Sami family settled around a fire and camp of their own. Mattie took note of how close the family was. While they had been accepted by Cole and the others, they still kept to themselves.

  Mattie could relate. Both his father and mother had died when he was very young and he was an only child. He had been passed around between several Mi’kmaq families, some of whom loved him and some who hated him. Mattie could never remember being a boy. He did recall one time, though, when he had tried to be one.

  HE WAS STAYING WITH A MI’KMAQ family who had told him they were his cousins. They were camped a bit upstream from the mouth of the brook the white man called “Indian River.” It poured into the northwest arm of Halls Bay, where he was told he was born. The Indian boy had heard many stories about the white man Hall who was captain of a schooner

  The decapitated head of Hall, along with the heads of several of his crew, were found impaled on long, sharpened poles driven into the shoreline of the bay that would forever bear his name. The tale was told again and again by the white settlers as well as the Mi’kmaq Indians. With every telling it was said that the Beothuk Indians, who walked this land no more, had been responsible for the killings.

  Curious to learn more about the cluster of homes built around the Halls Bay shoreline just north of the river, the young Mattie had walked until he was standing among the trees on the edge of the village his people called Wolf Cove. Several boys and one girl, all about his own age, were playing near the closest of the white houses. They appeared to be kicking around what looked like the bladder of an animal. Their screams of joy as they ran after the ball drew him out of the woods. Awhile later, he approached them.

  The young girl saw him first. She let out a yell that hurt his ears and stopped the others in their tracks. They ran yelling and screaming in terror toward the house—all except one boy who was taller and who appeared to be older than the others. He had bright red hair that fell to his shoulders. Mattie had never seen red hair before.

  Transfixed, he noticed too late the sharp-edged rock propelled from the redheaded boy’s long arm. He turned to run back into the woods and the rock struck him a sharp blow just below his right kneecap, causing him to stumble. Looking back, he saw the redhead searching for another rock. At the same time, a white man with a long-barrelled gun gripped in his left hand rushed out of the house.

  Mattie sprinted in fear and was soon lost in the trees. Feeling safe in the thick woods, he peered out. The young girl was standing and still screaming next to a woman who had a protective arm around her. The tall boy with the red hair was still throwing rocks into the woods. The man held the gun to his shoulder and pointed it skyward before pulling the trigger. He said something to the redheaded boy and then both of them walked back toward the woman and the girl. Before the sound of the shot had died, the young Indian boy vanished into the forest where no one followed and where he always felt safe. That was as close as the boy Mattie Mitchell had ever come to playing with anyone, Indian or white.

  By the time he was ten years old he was trapping the streams and helping to provide for the family with whom he was living. They rarely went in any town, and when they did they stayed on the outskirts. They stayed apart from the whites. Usually he was hustled along with a small band of Indians on their hunting, fishing, and trapping excursions, during which they spent months on end by the banks of secluded rivers.

  Standing there in the quiet, frosty night watching the deer and studying the heavens, he identified the North Star in the direction from which they had come with the reindeer. Not much had really changed, he thought. White children still avoided him and some of them still threw rocks at him.

  MATTIE STAYED WITH THE HERD UNTIL the two dippers circling the North Star told him he had kept his watch. He walked back to the campsite, pulled a stick out of the fire, and pointing it toward the north. He laid it down in the snow, where it sizzled for a just a minute.

  Crawling into the tent, he roused Greening, who went sleepy-eyed out into the cold. Mattie turned in, fully dressed. He hauled a dirty blanket over him and slept. When Greening ended his watch the two caribou had gone, and with them four of the reindeer.

  They crossed dozens of frozen lakes and smaller ponds where the going was easier for Mattie. Now he would point in the direction he needed to go and the Sami would drive their charges ahead. The rest of the party would follow behind on the trail.

  The party crossed hundreds of brooks, some of which they could jump across or step over on rocks. Other streams and rivers they had to wade across with warm boots removed and woollen trousers rolled up. Still, others they forded in waist-high water, necessitating quick fires afterward to dry out their wet, frozen clothing. At these crossings the sturdy reindeer shivered the cold water off their heavy coats, foraged whatever food was available, and looked around at the two-legged beasts standing and shivering by smoky fires as if curious what was taking them so long.

  And always they were led by the tall Indian who seldom spoke.

  Nine hard walking days later found the weary group of men, women, and dogs—none of the reindeer, not even the pregnant females, showed signs of fatigue—at Cat Arm. Once more Mitchell and Cole halted the trek. A sudden blizzard of snow borne on a northeast wind these first few days of the official spring date had made further travel unwise, but Cole wanted to keep moving. On the same day, all of the Laplanders suffered from snow blindness and they wanted to set up camp and stay there until they healed. Despite the severity of the weather, Cole had to “bally rag” them until they agreed to continue.

  Everyone had run out of tobacco. They had to chop down spruce trees to allow the reindeer to eat the mosses that the Newfoundlanders called maw dow. Worse than that, they were down to the last of their flour and Cole had to ration everyone to one small doughy bread bun per day. They boiled water for the last of their tea, dried it, then boiled it again. The travellers were in desperate need of food. Killing one of the deer would be an absolute last resort.

  On March 28, as they camped on a tributary of Sop’s Arm Brook, Mattie fell victim from erysipelas again. However, when Cole asked him if was able to go get some food for the group, he agreed without hesitation. He and Greening left for Sop’s Arm on March 29 with their two best dogs, Kruger and Black, pulling an empty komatik.

  While the whiteout raged outside the flapping tents, Cole explained to the Sami, through the interpreter, that a storm this time of year was what the seal hunters called a lapping or whelping batch. It always came just in time for the birth of thousands of seals taking place on the immense floating icefields just offshore. When harp seals birthed or “whelped” their white-coated babies, they stained the virgin ice with countless spots of birth blood. The storm covered the creatures from predators while the newborns “lapped” their first liquid protein from the bellies of their lactating mothers. The storm of wind and snow always seemed to happen around this very date every year.

  The spring date in Newfoundland, like spring everywhere else, was merely an easing-off of winter. There would be no fresh spring daisies to pick anywhere along their trail just yet, although the weather warmed on April 1 to an incredible thirty-five degrees with strong winds from the south. However, they learned it was only a “breeder” for worse days ahead.

  Mattie and Greening had only taken one meal with them. They hoped to reach a small logging camp at the innermost reach of Sop’s Arm that night. When they hadn’t returned four days later, Hugh Cole grew very worried.<
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  On April 4, 1908, he began to write in his personal journal:

  Rough weather continued all night. Thought the tent would have been blown down. By 8am tent nearly filled with snow. Snow coming through stove piping and door. Stove blown down. Marked trail from camp to brook in case the boys come that way. The weather too bad to face the brook. The brook is covered with huge snow drifts, but the boys will have a “trade wind” if they come back today. Another day gone and they have not arrived. Half a pound of meat left—enough for tomorrow.

  APRIL 5TH

  Still blowing, but not quite as hard. Snowing a little. Glass going up; temperature 22 above. Thick mist on the hills, no sign of the boys. Only a small piece of meat left—about 3 inches by 1/2 an inch. Told Sundine meat before sleep was not good for him. He looked so sad that I had to give way, and halve the beef, which I then cut into 13 small pieces. The tea was weak—and so were we. Gave instructions to Laps to move the camp on Monday towards Sop’s Arm the direction in which the boys left. Will have to kill one of the deer tomorrow unless the boys arrive.

  APRIL 6TH

  Fine morning. Up early and cooked our little breakfast. Deer all collected by 6: 30. Just about to pack up, when we heard a gun fired, on the hill about two miles away. We dropped our traps, and ran out of the tent. In the distance we could see Greening and five other men, with packs on their backs, coming towards our camp. Our two faithful dogs “Black” and “Kruger” were with them. Oh what joy. After a great welcome Greening said, “Where is Mitchell.” Of course I looked at him with surprise, then he told me that Mitchell had left a day ahead of him with two men and provisions. Mitchell and the two men arrived in camp about two hours later. It appears that during the storm, they had crossed the brook at the steady, and wandered about 12 miles from the way.