Winter Brothers in Exile

Winter Brothers in exile. There was only a dark narrow band of cold open water on the Sudbury River in February 1974 when I saw a broken-wing goose laying on the ice.  Paddling really hard I propelled Tom’s kayak up on to the shore-fast ice and skidded across to where the goose, too weak to move, lay.  I placed him on my lap and brought him home, nursed him back to health, and eventually relocated him with a flock of one-winged and one-footed geese at the Audubon sanctuary at Drumlin Farms. A goose has a wondrous heart.

And a lovely poem from W.S.Merwin in a recent New Yorker (8 March 2010):

A Message to Po Chu-I

In that tenth winter of your exile

the cold never letting go of you

and your hunger aching inside of you

day and night while you heard the voices

out of the starving mouths around you

old ones and infants and animals

those curtains of bones swaying on stilts

and you heard the faint cries of the birds

searching in the frozen mud for something

to swallow and you watched the migrants

trapped in the cold the great geese growing

weaker by the day until their wings

could barely lift them above the ground

so that a gang of boys could catch one

in a net and drag him to market

to be cooked and then it was then that you

saw him in his own exile and you

paid for him and kept him until he

could fly again and you let him go

but then where could he go in the world

of your time with its wars everywhere

and the soldiers hungry the fires lit

the knives out twelve hundred years ago

I have been wanting to let you know

the goose is well he is here with me

you would recognize the old migrant

he has been with me for a long time

and is in no hurry to leave here

the wars are bigger now than ever

greed has reached numbers that you would not

believe and I will not tell you what

is done to geese before they kill them

now we are melting the very poles

of the earth but I have never known

where he would go after he leaves me

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Thoughts on the Ivory-Bill Spring 2005.

The announcement in Science of an ivory-bill woodpecker sighting in Arkansas made the news the day before Joan returned from her sabbatical in Cambridge. When I picked her up at Dulles and we were back in the car heading towards home I said, “Joan, there is news and its HUGE!” and then I quickly said “its not political, its Stephen, its HUGE for Stephen”. When I was working in Arkansas for the Archaeology Survey the Ivory-Bill was the essence of the mystery and magic that seemed to infuse the landscape of imagination at the border of history and prehistory. Beginning in Arkansas in the early-1970’s and for the next thirty years I spent days searched the hardwood bottoms of the Deep South for the Ivory-Bill, convinced that there was a great conspiracy of silence that sheltered the bird and the mystery. In Arkansas, Texas, Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas I’ve left trails behind, striking off into backwaters and abandoned sloughs, finding Indian mounds, rattlesnakes, alligators and snapping turtles and losing myself, my worries, the world beyond the next hummock, the next big tree. Walking and wading as silently as possible or drifting in the old canoe motionless, as still and as quiet as I’ve ever been, almost breathless with the waiting. Waiting and watching. A deep silence slipping back to an ancient past as deep as the river, as deep as time with no beginning and no end in sight or in mind. After a while the deer forget you are about, wood ducks approach unaware and slide away without a ripple, wild turkeys begin to shuffle about the forest floor, herons put down their raised foot. The bottomland cypress forests of the South, especially the Congaree outside of Columbia, were my church and as real a wilderness as any Alaskan mountain top or ice-choked Labrador shore. I’d been haunted by the promise and prospect that if I went further in, lingered longer, braved darkness and eschewed comforts and promises then, only then, might I be rewarded by seeing an Ivory-bill. Ironically, among the first stories I heard of the Lord God Bird were in north-central Arkansas where I was a guide on the Buffalo River, living in a small log-cabin without heat or plumbing and working on my senior honor’s thesis on Vermont Archaeology. The bird was the stuff of legends –huge, invisible, mysterious. None of the guides I worked with had seen the bird, but their fathers had and stories of it persisted. The Buffalo is a tributary of the White River, my cabin, by water, was less than 200 miles upstream of what appears to be the Ivory-Bill redoubt. But at the time the Big Woods of the lower White were not on my radar screen. I was thinking further south and west in the Felsenthal and the Big Thicket. Once I made a foolish ascent of a precipitous bluff wall behind my Buffalo River cabin, arriving exhausted and thrilled at the rim where I fell asleep leaning against a scrub-oak. It must have been the bird’s arrival that woke me, for when I opened my eyes there was, close-enough to touch, a pileated woodpecker. The majesty of that moment, and the awe in being so close to such an other-worldly being, has never left me. I thought that this is how St. Francis of Assisi must have felt, that the wild creatures would come to his hand. And I longed to look into the eyes of his larger, wilder, mythical cousin. Since that day my mind has often been down around the bend, ahead of me, scouting and waiting. Waiting for this strange ornithological Holy Grail, this anachronistic thing from another time and place. Such a burden for one creature to carry as if in its sighting we might erase our sins, our sins of greed. Some Smithsonian colleagues in Birds are already dismissing the Arkansas sightings as those of an oddly-colored pileated but then, following in the tradition of Hrdlicka, the Smithsonian has ever been in the vanguard of conservatism. Hopefully time will prove the ornithological curators as wrong in their interpretation of woodpecker plumage as Hrdlicka was in assessing the antiquity of human beings in the New World.

Grand River Trappers

Here is a passage about the old Grand River trappers in Labrador that I am frequently making reference to. It always struck me as an amazing story (and a good reason why not to get a haircut!!!) But just as amazing as surviving the disaster in the rapids is the nonchalance with which Goudie and Michelin pick-up and walk home whereas the rest of us would have been dead from hypothermia!

If the hunting is good they may stay out till after the thaw or they may strike up their traps in April and sledge out on the last of the ice. In either case it is a dangerous business. The old ice is worn by the current underneath as much as it is melted above by the sun, and often it gives no sign of its fragility until it gives way and deposits the unwary traveller in the swift flowing water beneath. Yet the first wild water after the break-up is more dangerous still. Quite suddenly the dams of snow and ice are broken and the river comes bounding down triumphant, sweeping with it tree trunks and pans of ice in an almost continuous rapid from the plateau to the sea. It is admittedly dangerous to navigate such waters especially with a valuable cargo of furs, but the good hunting is over and the trappers must get home quickly or waste their time in the woods. They know the river so well that, theoretically at least, they can get ashore in time and make a portage around the worst places; but sometimes their impatience overcomes their discretion. On one occasion Sam Goudie and John Michelin were racing home after a very long and successful season in the woods. They were both expert canoe men and could steer their way among the white eddies of the worst rapid, so they chose the river where most men would have gone ashore. They came round a corner and, just in front of them, the river swirled under a ledge of still unbroken ice. Goudie, who was kneeling in the bow, managed to jump on to the ice, but John Michelin had forced his legs under the tarpaulin which was lashed above the load and could not move in time. Goudie caught him by his long hair and jerked him to safety as the canoe disappeared beneath them with all their food and two thousand dollars’ worth of furs. They got home without much hardship, but they were poor men until the next season was over. pp.38-39
J. M. Scott (1933) The Land that God Gave Cain: an Account of H.G. Watkin’s Expedition to Labrador, 1928-1929. Chatto and Windus: London.

Wren in the Window.

It stood so still for so long, between the little bottles holding odd blossoms and plants taking root, and the window glass as if trying to fathom the betrayal of the light and the promise of an open space. Joan thought it was a cut-out from a magazine that I'd slipped in behind the plants. When it knew we were looking at it, had seen it, it waited a second and then darted away, in the manner of wrens, to secretive dark places under chairs and behind radiators. Nothing to do but draw all the shades and at the same time open all the doors. Being a wren it would find its own way out.

Tshikapisk Foundation and the Arctic Studies Center.

The Tshikapisk Foundation and the Arctic Studies Center: the architecture of a community anthropology partnership. (Stephen Loring and Anthony Jenkinson [Tshikapisk Foundation])

Since 1999 Stephen Loring has worked closely with Tshikapisk staff in making archaeology and training in cultural heritage management an important component of the Tshikapisk agenda. The Tshikapisk Foundation is an Innu experiential education program based in Sheshatshiu, Labrador; named after a legendary culture-hero/trickster/shaman Tshikapisk is dedicated to preserving and celebrating Innu culture, knowledge and language by providing opportunities for Innu youth and families to pursue traditional country-based life-ways, subsistence activities and language. Founded in response to the crisis in Innu society brought about by resettlement in coastal communities where problems of poor health, subsistence abuse, violence and village poverty have reached epidemic proportions (see Canada’s Tibet: the killing of the Innu, published by Survival International www.survival.org.uk) Tshikapisk strives to create opportunities for Innu youth to gain country-based experiences in the company of Innu educators and families. Tshikapisk is all about celebrating traditional Innu values and about respect: respect for the land, for the animals, and ultimately, respect for Innu accomplishments and heritage.

The Tshikapisk initiative evolved from a highly successful country-based training program developed by Anthony Jenkinson and Jean-Piere Ashini (Napes) which was called Nutshimiu Atusseun. Sponsored by Innu Nation the program, held in the country west of the Mealy Mountains, created opportunities for Innu young people to gain skills ---as well as emotional and physical strength--- by drawing from a reservoir of Innu traditions. The success of this program was the inspiration that led to the creation of the not-for-profit Tshikapisk Foundation in 1997.

Since 1997 Tshikapisk has developed a series of programs and projects centred at Kamestastin (Lake Mistastin on most maps, in the barrenlands west of Voisey’s Bay, near the border with Quebec) --a flooded meteorite impact crater-- where it is constructing a cultural resource centre and experiential education facility. Over the last six years an extraordinary consortium of interests including government agencies, the private sector, NGO’s, European and American researchers, the Mennonite Church and the German Air Force (which flew in tonnes of building materials and equipment which they deployed on the ice without landing as part low-level flying training exercises) have allied themselves with Innu community agencies and the Innu Nation to build the Kamestastin facility. The dream of an Innu Cultural Center situated in the heart of Nitassinan (the Innu word for their homeland) centers on construction of Shakutum Utshistun (the Gyrfalcon’s Nest). While the main lodge is still in need of funds to finish the interior, a suite of four out-buildings have been constructed and the plans and equipment for a solar-powered facility are well underway. Tshikapisk plans to use the Kamestastin facility to provide a country setting for educational, health and language programs for the Innu. It is hoped that these programs would generate revenues that would augment funds from eco-tourism and experiential education initiatives that are under development with schools and universities in Canada, the United States and England.

Stephen was drawn to work with Tshikapisk by the opportunity to travel with and learn from older Innu men and women who were born in the country and were knowledgeable about country matters, subsistence strategies, and stories: a unique and priceless corpus of knowledge and inspiration that represent one of the last intact libraries of direct experiences relating to humanities common hunting and gathering subsistence heritage. The Innu are forever linked, in their own minds, as well as in the minds of visitors and anthropologists, with caribou. Caribou and reindeer figure significantly in the story of human evolution from the origins of art and language in the Ice Age caves of Europe, to the subsistence strategy of choice for the colonizing paleoindian populations entering the New World, and as the means of survival for circumpolar peoples from the Pleistocene to the present. Working with Tshikapisk provides an extraordinary opportunity to learn from a remarkable group of Innu seniors about the practical aspects of caribou hunting and the spiritual realms and social responsibilities that hunting entails.

The practice of archaeology as incorporated into a Tshikapisk agenda has proved a remarkably close fit: as a bridge between the world of science and the interests of Innu leaders and educators and as a bridge for the Innu themselves, providing a common ground for discussion between country-born elders, Innu educators, and Innu youth, and visiting archaeologists

This past September (2006) was Stephen Loring’s sixth trip to Kamestastin. Stephen and the Tshikapisk team were able to spend a couple of weeks conducting archaeological excavation and survey prior to the arrival of a portion of the George River caribou herd, more than 10,000 animals, who effectively curbed our enthusiasm for revealing past caribou hunting and feasting camps for contemporary ones. The ASC involvement with Tshikapisk has been a tremendously rewarding experience for both the Innu educators and students and for the anthropologist they have befriended. We expect that the cooperative foundation that has been built thus far will continue to flourish in the years to come, that the future of the past, as it pertains to the Innu, will be as exciting and inspirational as the heritage it seeks to celebrate.

MISSIONARY TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS.


1. Shipwreck
From PA28:14-17: Retrospect of the History of the Mission of the Brethren's Church in Labrador for the Past Hundred Years:

Jens Haven's account of a trip north from Nain to survey for a second mission site. In August 1774 he set out with fellow brethren Brasen, Lister, and Lehman (ships crew 2 sailors and captain and 2 Eskimos to make compliment of nine) in a small sloop.
"It had snowed the whole night, and was very cold. A brisk gale sprung up from the north-east, which inspired us with the hope that we should reach Nain. September 14th, towards four p.m., we all at once found ourselves in shoal water, which surprised us exceedingly, as we were in the usual channel between Nain and Navon, and more than a league from the nearest island. We tacked about immediately. Scarcely had we done this, when the vessel struck on a rocky bottom, which, as we afterwards learned, is dry at spring-tide. The boat was lowered immediately, in order to take the soundings round the ship, and, as we found deep water at the prow, we proposed casting an anchor forwards. There was too much sea, however, to allow us to row out with it; we therefore let down a small anchor to steady the boat during this operation. But no sooner was the large anchor on board the boat, than the sails got loose, and drove it before the wind; so that it took the men half an hour's hard rowing to get back to the sloop, and reach the rope which we threw out to them. After the anchor was cast, we endeavoured to wear the ship off, but finding that the anchor drove, and that we had now only four feet of water, we were obliged to desist till the tide should turn, and commended ourselves meanwhile to the mercy of God. We had, however, but slender hope that the ship would hold out so long, as the waves broke over us incessantly, and we expected every moment to see it go to pieces. We secured the boat as well as we could, by means of three strong ropes, two inches thick, and, in full resignation to the Lord's will, determined to stay in the sloop till morning, if possible. The wind roared furiously; every wave washed over us; and the foaming of the deep was rendered yet more terrible by the thick darkness of the night. Towards ten o'clock the ship began to roll most violently, and to drive upon the cliffs in such a manner that everything on board was turned upside down, and we could not but fear that the timbers would soon part. Shortly after ten the rudder was carried away by a huge wave, which broke over the whole vessel, and covered us with a winding-sheet. Our two sailors entreated us to take to the boat, if we wished to save our lives. We represented to them the danger of braving so rough a sea in so small a boat; and that, supposing it could outlive that, it must inevitably perish in the breakers on the coast, which we could not avoid in the darkness. We begged them to stay by the ship as long as possible; perhaps we might maintain the post till daybreak, and, at all events, should it come to the worst, we had the boat to fly to. They appeared to give in to our arguments; but we were obliged to watch their motions lest they should slip off with the boat. We waited in stillness what our dear Lord should appoint for us.
By two o'clock in the morning of the 15th, the sloop had shipped so much water, that the chests on which we sat began to float, and we were obliged to leave the cabin and go on to the upper deck, where a fearful scene presented itself. The middle deck was entirely under water, and the waves were rolling mountains high. All were now convinced that it was time to leave the vessel. But here we were met by a new difficulty. The sea was so rough, that, had we brought the boat alongside, it would inevitably have been stove in. We therefore drew it astern, and, climbing one by one down the anchor shaft, jumped into it, and through the mercy of God, we all, nine in number, succeeded in reaching it. We now found that we had taken this step only just in time, for two of the three ropes by which the boat was moored had already given way, and the third held only by one strand, the others having parted, so that we should very soon have lost the boat. Our first business was to bale out the water which the boat had shipped in no small quantity. Oars being useless in such a sea, we let the boat run before the wind, which it did with incredible celerity. We attempted in vain to get under the lee of different islands, as the breakers drove us off the coast whenever we approached it. At length we thought we saw a prospect of finding harbourage between two islands, but we were again interrupted by rocks and breakers. The boat filled with water, which kept us constantly at work, and as there appeared to be no other resource left, we resolved in God's name to run the boat on shore, which was about twenty yards distant, but begirt with cliffs on which the waves were dashing furiously. We darted rapidly through them, when the boat struck on a sunken rock with such violence, that we were all thrown from our seats, and the boat instantly filled with water. The captain, John Hill, and the two sailors, threw themselves into the sea, and swam to land, which they gained in safety, and from whence they reached out an oar to assist the rest in landing. Br. Lister was the first who neared the shore, but he was driven back into the sea by the violence of the waves. On approaching the rocks a second time, he found a small ledge, by which he held on, till the oar was extended to him by his companions on the strand. I had been thrown out of the boat by the first shock, and resigned myself to the Lord's gracious hands to do with me what He pleased. After swallowing a large quantity of water, I was hurled back into the boat, and as it drifted to the shore, I succeeded in grasping the friendly oar. At the same time, the Esquimaux pilot clung to my legs, and thus we were both drawn up the rocks together. Br. Brasen thrice gained the rocks, and twice caught hold of the aor, but he was so exhausted, and encumbered besides by his heavy garments, that he could make no effort to save himself, and finally sank. Br. Lehman was heard exclaiming, as the boat struck, 'Dear Saviour, I commend my spirit into Thy hands!' We all thought that he had got on shore, but it pleased the Lord thus to take him to Himself. The rest of us who had reached dry land were rescued for the present from a watery grave, but we found ourselves on a bare rock, half dead with cold, in so dark a night, that we could not see a hand before us, -without shelter, without food, without boat,- in short, without the smallest gleam of hope that we should ever leave this fearful spot alive. We knew that no Esquimoes were likely to come this way, as they had all resolved to winter to the south of Nain. The cold was intense, so that we were obliged to keep ourselves warm by constant motion. When morning came, we sought for our boat, but in vain: a few fragments of it which had been washed on shore, was all that we could find, and we concluded that it had gone to pieces. We also met with a fw blankets, some broken biscuits, and other articles, which we collected very carefully. At low water, we discovered the bodies of our two brethren lying close together on the strand, but they were quite dead. They were safe from all trouble, and had brethren surviving to bury their remains, while we had no other prospect than to pine away with hunger, and leave our bodies to be entombed by birds and beasts of prey. About seven o'clock in the morning, we had the joy to see, first the prow and then the stern of our boat emerging from the water. But our joy was damped on dragging it to land, for the planks were torn off from both sides of the keel, and the few ribs left were in splinters. Happily, however, the prow, stern, and keel, were yet entire. We now set ourselves to repair the boat, impracticable as it seemed with such a lack of materials for the purpose. Yet we contrived to lash the blankets over the open spaces, sewing to them, in addition, all the seal-skins we could muster from our upper and nether garments, including even our boots. We spent three days in these miserable repairs, and, on the 18th, launched our boat for Nain, which, by the help of an Eskimo party that we met not far from the settlement, we succeded in reaching the same evening."

2. Augustus

"December the 1st [1867] was marked by a severe snow-storm, so that we feared all the seal-nets would be lost. The next day, the thermometer shewed 8o below zero, or 40o below the freezing-point. Yet some men ventured out in their kayaks and secured four seals. But one of them, a young man named Augustus, did not return in the evening. He had been enclosed by the thin floating ice, which became more solid every hour, but yet did not set sufficiently to be crossed in order to reach the land. Night came on, and his companions could see him at a distance, but, being unable to reach him, had to return home without him. We were greatly distressed on his account, and much prayer was made for him, that the Lord would save him in this danger. It seemed quite impossible that any one could spend many hours, sitting in a kayak, in such extreme cold, without being frozen to death. In the night a high wind sprang up, and next morning almost all the ice formed the previous day was driven out to sea, so that we feared the worst. Some men went out to look for him, but, in the afternoon, how rejoiced were we to see him return in his kayak, with a seal which he had taken. Another, which he had harpooned, was lost in the ice. He said, "While I live, I shall tremble. Kneeling in my kayak, I did not preceive the cold much. But I thought of my sins, and prayed the Lord to deliver me this once. I was not a little alarmed when I perceived that I was driving towards the last point of land, and that the ice shewed no signs of breaking. However, there came a swell from the sea, and broke up the ice, so that I could reach the land."
-(PA27:53-54 (1867): "Extracts of the Diary of Hopedale")

Photography by E. "Pep" Wheeler, north of Nain ca. 1929, in the collections of the Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution

3. A Tale of Mutiny and Cannibalism

From a letter from Okak (PA24:128-129): "On the 24th of September last, our people brought information respecting a man who had been found in a state of starvation. Before long, he was brought hither, and we provided for his wants as wellas we could. When he had gained some strength, we sent him to Nain in the newly-constructed sailing boat of one of our people. He stated that he and another had separated from a party, which at first consisted of nine men, and had wandered about on land. His companions died of exhaustion, and he himself was near death when he was discovered. Scarcely had he left us, when five others made their appearance, in a deplorable state of filth, hunger, and nakedness. They stated that two of their companions had died, and that they sought to satisfy the cravings of hunger with their flesh. They did not profess to have suffered shipwreck, but said they had been induced by the ill-treatment of the captain, to leave their ship, in the hope of meeting with some other vessel, or with European settlers on the coast. These five were thoroughly coarse, ungrateful beings. There was something mysterious about them, and perhaps the less is said, the better. We were truly thankful that some of our people were found willing, so late in the season, to take them also to Nain."
From a letter from Nain (PA24:124): "In the autumn [1860], we had a very unpleasant visit from six sailors, who had not suffered shipwreck, but had run away from their vessel. As was the case with those the year previous, they were found in the most wretched condition by some Esquimaux belonging to Okak. They were Americans, and were so evidently bad characters, that we should have handed them over to the civil authorities, had any such existed. As they contradicted each other, it is uncertain in what circumstances their ship was, when they left it. According to the statement of the majority, they had a dispute with the captain on account of his tyrannical conduct. They therefore left the ship in a small boat, when near the land, in the 66th degree of north latitude, in the vain hope of falling in with settlers. With the greatest coolness they stated that they had eaten one of their comrades, who had died. Altogether, three of their party had perished before they reached Okak; and, from some brutal expressions they let fall, we were led to fear that the survivors were not guiltless concerning their death. They were in a dreadful state of suffering and exhaustion from hunger; and although they had plunged themselves into this distress, we felt called upon to act towards them the good Samaritan's part. We therefore supplied their most pressing wants, and in three days sent them by an Esquimaux boat to Hopedale. They showed but little gratitude for the services rendered them. The Esquimaux who took them to Hopedale were brought into considerable peril in consequence of a sudden storm, but the strangers would not afford them the least assistance. They even stole the provisions which we had given the Esquimaux for their subsistence on the voyage, and made use of them in addition to their own. When the Esquimaux had returned in safety from this expedition, they made use of the significant expression, "Kingmititut nerilaukput," that is, "they gorged themselves like dogs".
From a letter from Hopedale (PA24:121): "There is one circumstance of a not very pleasant character to which we must refer. It is the fact, that some runaway sailors were sent to us from Nain, who had been found by the Esquimaux near Okak, in a starving state. They were very disorderly, and we were glad to be able to forward them to Kippokak the day after their arrival."

4. The Shaman and the Nennerluk (Crantz 1820:309)

A singular story, which circulated at Nain in 1773, and gained credit with the Esquimaux, may be mentioned as an instance of that deeply-rooted inclination for the marvellous and supernatural which rendered it so difficult, even for the Christian converts to wean themselves from their attachment to former superstitious notions and observances. It was reported that the men in the north had at length killed Innukpak, with his wife and children. This was a murderer of such monstrous size, that, while he stood in the valley of Nain, he might have rested his hand on the summit of the adjacent mountain. His dress was the white skin of the nennerluk, an amphibious bear, that hunted and devoured seals, each of whose ears was large enough for the covering of a capacious tent. This beast did not scruple to eat human flesh, when he came on shore, where some affirmed they had seen him, and were vexed when their testimony was doubted. Indeed the Brethren in Okkak thought they saw such a sea -monster one evening, in the August of 1786, which rose up to the height of a huge ice-berg, in the mouth of the bay, showed its white colour, and then plunged down again, leaving a whirlpool of foam. The Esquimaux, without hesitation, pronounced it to be the nennerluk; but as the description is so vague, we may justly call in question whether they were not deceived by some tumbling ice-berg.” (Crantz 1820:309)

Material Cited

Crantz, David
1820 Appendix: Narrative of the First Settlement made by the United Brethren on the Coast of Labrador, with a brief View of the Progress of the Mission. The History of Greenland: Including an Account of the Mission Carried on by the United Brethren in that country. pp.287-319. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown: London.

PA = Periodical Accounts