The Dakota Cipher

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A North West Company freight brigade of six canoes fetched us from Mackinac Island on its way to Lake Superior. Each vessel, improbably made of nothing but birch bark, wood strips, and roots used for twine, was thirty-five feet long, carried sixty 90-pound packs of trade goods, and had a guide at the bow, a steersman at the stern, and eight paddlers as driven as galley slaves. In the segregation of labour that had followed the British conquest of Canada, all the labourers were French Canadian, while four of the canoes each carried either a Scot, an Englishman, or a German Jew as bourgeois, or gentleman fur partner or clerk, who rode amidships like a little sultan. The other two would carry the Somersets, Magnus, and me. We could hear the paddlers’ song in French as the flotilla neared the island, the lilting melody floating over the blue water in time to the dip of the paddles:

C’est l’aviron qui nous mène

M’en revenant de la jolie Rochelle

J’ai rencontré trois jolies demoiselles.

C’est l’aviron qui nous mène, qui nous mène,

C’est l’aviron qui nous mène en haut.

It is the paddle that brings us

Riding along the road from Rochelle city

I met three girls and all of them were pretty.

It is the paddle that brings us, that brings us,

It is the paddle that brings us up there.

The verses set the time for the stroke. We would journey on a tide of French folk song.

Our course would first pass the new British post of Fort Saint Joseph being constructed at the north end of Lake Huron, and then through the thirty-mile-long Sault Ste Marie, or the ‘Saint Mary Jump’ of rapids that led to Lake Superior. Then we would hug the northern shore of that inland sea until we reached Grand Portage at its western end.

As promised, Aurora and her cousin took a canoe different from that of Magnus and me, the woman seating herself primly on one of her trunks and holding a parasol as shade. The year had warmed now and the forests had erupted in full leaf and flower, but no public warmth emanated from Aurora, who looked steadfastly away. I tolerated this coolness because the inevitable end would be so sweet, and because it saved me from having to pay court to her whims or explain our tryst to others. I could pretend nothing had happened! I knew she’d reheat quickly enough once she missed my prowess.

Like most men, I have an optimistic appraisal of my own charm.

Cecil, after greeting the other bourgeois, took up position in a second canoe, natty as ever in fawn-coloured coat, high marching boots, and beaver-skin top hat. He carried a fowling piece on his lap to plunk at birds, and a popular novel in his pocket to pass the time. He seemed so at home in this wild country that I suspected his fine manners coated a core of experienced steel.

The voyageurs wore buckskin leggings, loose white shirts, bright caps, and, if needed, blanket coats called capots. Physically they tended to be short-legged and broad-shouldered, almost like muscular dwarves bred to the canoe. Here was our transport west! The canoe we would ride glided in and the bowman who commanded – wiry, tanned, with impish dark eyes and a jaunty red cap – bounded onto the island’s dock to block us before we could board. While the Somersets had been catered to, this captain put hands to his hips and dubiously eyed us like specimens of flotsam.

‘Mon dieu, an ox and a donkey! And I am supposed to paddle your weight to Grand Portage, I suppose?’

Magnus squinted. ‘No little man needs to paddle me.’

‘Little man?’ He stood up on his toes, thrusting his nose in my companion’s face. ‘Little man? I am Pierre Radisson, a North Man with three winters at the posts and the guide of this master canoe! The Scots pay me a full nineteen English pounds a year! I can stroke twenty hours in a single day without complaining and travel a hundred miles before sleeping! Little man? None know the rapids like the great Pierre! None can portage faster than I, or drink more, or dance more splendidly, or jump higher, or run faster, or more quickly win an Indian bride! Little man?’ He crowded into Magnus, the crown of his head at the Norwegian’s collarbone. ‘I can swim, shoot, trap, chop, and fuck better than the likes of a clumsy oaf like you, eat my own weight, and find my way from Montreal to Athabasca with my eyes closed, cyclops giant!’

Bloodhammer was finally forced to take a step back. ‘I just meant a Norwegian pulls his own oar.’

‘Ha! Do you see any oars on my canoe? You think me master of a dinghy? I think perhaps that a Norwegian is an imbecile!’ He eyed Magnus up and down like a tree he was considering chopping. ‘But you are big, so perhaps I will let you try my paddle – if you promise not to break it or use it to pick your big horse teeth, or lose it in that thicket of moss that is your face. Do you know any songs?’

‘Not French ones.’

‘Yes, and it sounds from the gravel of your throat that you will sing like a grindstone. Mon dieu! It is hopeless.’ He turned to me. ‘And you, even skinnier and more useless than him! What do you have to say?’

‘That the girls of Rochelle are pretty,’ I replied in French.

He brightened. ‘Ah, you speak the civilised tongue? Are you French?’

‘American, but I lived in Paris. I worked as an aide to Bonaparte.’

‘Bonaparte! A brave one, eh? Maybe he will take back Canada. And what do you do now?’

‘I’m an electrician.’

‘A what?’

‘He’s a sorcerer,’ Magnus explained, using French as well.

Now Pierre looked intrigued. ‘Really? What kind of sorcerer?’

‘A scientist,’ I clarified.

‘A scientist? What is that?’

‘A savant. One who knows the secrets of nature, from study.’

‘Nature? Bah! All men know savants are as useless as priests. But sorcery – now that is a skill not altogether useless in the wilderness. The Indians have sorcerers, because the woods are filled with spirits. Oh yes, the Indians can see the world behind this one, and call the animals, and talk to the trees. Just you wait, sorcerer. You will see the cliffs wink and storm clouds form into a ram’s horn. Wind in the cottonwoods will whisper to you, and birds and squirrels will give you advice. And when night falls, perhaps you feel the cold breath of the Wendigo.’

‘The what?’

‘An Indian monster who lives in the forest and devours his victims more thoroughly than the werewolves the gypsies speak of in France.’ He nodded. ‘Every Ojibway will tell you they are real. A sorcerer – that is what we truly need.’ He looked at me with new respect, even though he clearly had never heard of electricity. ‘And can you paddle?’

‘I’m probably better at singing.’

‘I don’t doubt it. Though I bet you can’t sing very well, either.’

‘I’m good at cards.’

‘Then you’re both lucky you have the mighty Pierre Radisson to look after you! You won’t need cards where we are going. But what is that you are carrying?’ he asked Magnus, staring at what was strapped to his back.

‘My axe and my maps.’

‘Axe? It looks big enough to sled on. Axe? We could hold it up for a sail, or use it as a roof in camp, or lower it as an anchor. Axe? We could recast it as artillery or start a blacksmith shop. So you might be useful after all, if you don’t let it drop through the bottom of my canoe. And you with your longrifle … that’s a pretty gun. Can you hit anything with it?’

‘I have impressed the ladies of Mortefontaine.’

He blinked. ‘Well. Paddle hard enough and I, Pierre will baptize you voyageurs if you satisfy me. That is the greatest honour a man could have, yes? To win recognition from a North Man? This means, if you are so blessed, that you must buy the rest of us a round of shrub from the company kegs. Two full gallons from each of you.’

‘What’s shrub?’ Magnus asked.

‘You might as well ask what is bread! Rum, sugar, and lemon juice, my donkey friend. Are you ready for such honour?’

I bowed. ‘We seek only the chance to prove ourselves.’

‘You will have that. Now. You will sit carefully on the trade bundles and will enter and leave my canoe with the utmost care. You must not tip her. Your foot must be on a rib or strake because you can step through her birch bark and I do not care to drown in Lake Superior. You will stroke to the time of the song, and you will never let my canoe touch a rock or the shore. When we camp we will jump out when she is still floating, unload the bales, and gently lift her ashore. Yes?’

‘We will be careful.’

‘This is for your own safety. These canoes are light for their size, fast, and can be repaired in an hour or two, but they bruise like a woman.’ He pointed to Aurora. ‘Treat them like her.’ Actually, the girl might already have a couple bruises, the way she writhed and wrestled, but I didn’t say that. Certain memories you keep to yourself.

And so with a cry and a saluting gun from the American fort, we were off.

A bark canoe might seem like a fragile craft to tackle an inland sea, but these were ingenious products of the surrounding forest, fleet and dry. Pitch and bark could repair damage in an afternoon, and they could be portaged on shoulders for miles. Pierre knelt in the bow, watching for rocks or logs and leading us in song as the paddles dipped in rhythmic cadence, up to forty strokes a minute. At the stern a steersman, Jacques by name, kept us on unerring course. The paddles flashed yellow in the sun, drops flying like diamonds to chase away the ambitious and persistent insects that buzzed out from land to escort us. The air off the lake was cool and fresh, the sun bright and hot on our crowns.

Always we stroked to song, some French, some English.

My canoe is of bark, light as a feather

That is stripped from silvery birch;

And the seams with roots sewn together,

The paddles white made of birch.

I take my canoe, send it chasing

All the rapids and billows acrost;

There so swiftly, see it go racing,

And it never the current has lost …

The voyageurs might be smaller than Magnus and me, but the tough little Frenchmen had the inexhaustibility of waterwheels. Within half an hour my breathing was laboured, and soon after I began to sweat despite the chill of the lake. On and on we stroked, moving at what I guessed was six miles an hour – double the speed of the fleet Napoleon had taken to Egypt! – and just as I felt I could paddle no longer, Pierre would give a cry and our brigade would finally drift, the men breaking out pipes to smoke. It was the chief pleasure of their day, occurring once every two hours, and it reminded me of the measured pauses of Napoleon’s Alpine army. The men would break off a twist of tobacco, a rope-like strand preserved in molasses and rum, crumble it in the bowl of the pipe, strike flint to tinder, and then lean back and puff, eyes closed against the sun. The quick drug made them content as babies. Our little fleet floated like dots on this vast water, the liquid so clean and cold that if thirsty we could dip our palms for a sip.

Then another cry and our pipes were tapped clean, embers hissing on the water, paddles were taken up, and with a shout and a chorus we were on again, driving hard to make maximum use of the lengthening days. Aurora stayed prim and regal under her parasol while Cecil read his little books, of which he had a full satchel, flinging each he finished into the water with the unspoken assumption that none of his rough companions were likely to be literate. Occasionally he would spy a duck or other waterfowl, put down his current volume, and blaze away, the bark of his gun echoing against the shore. He never missed, but we never paused to retrieve the game, either. It was only for sport. As the bird floated away he’d reload, rest his piece on his lap, and go back to reading.

We camped at sunset at a cove marked by a tall ‘lopstick,’ a pine tree denuded of its lower branches but left with a tuft at the top as a landmark. These, we learnt, were pruned on all the canoe routes to mark camping places. We drifted into a pretty point with a pebble beach and high grass under a stand of birch, Pierre jumping from our canoe into knee-deep water to halt its advance and then drawing it gently towards shore. We each in turn sprang stiffly out.

‘It’s cold!’ Magnus complained.

‘Ah, you are a scientist too?’ Pierre responded. ‘What an observer you are! Here is the trick: it makes us work all the faster to build our fires.’

As the canoe lightened it was drawn closer, never touching the smooth pebbles of the shore, all of us lifting out the freight bales and arranging them in a makeshift barricade covered with an oilcloth. The empty canoes were finally heaved up with a great cry, flipped with a spray of water, hoisted overhead, marched up the strand, and then propped up on one side by paddles to make an instant lean-to. Fires were lit, guns primed, water fetched, and pipes smoked as peas, pork, and biscuit were cooked and served. It was dull fare that I ate like a starving man.

‘Yes, eat, eat, sorcerer!’ Pierre encouraged. ‘You, too, giant! Eat to lighten Radisson’s canoe, and because you will lose weight on this trip no matter how much you gobble! Yes, the work burns your body! Eat because there is no pork past Grand Portage, which is why the Montreal men are called the Pork Eaters and only those of us who have wintered over are true North Men.’

‘What do you eat past Grand Portage?’ Magnus asked as he chewed.

‘Pemmican. Dried game, berries, and sometimes a mush of rice or corn. Any city man would spit it out, but it’s nectar to a working man after a day at the paddles. A pound of pemmican is worth eight pounds of bread! Of course, a few months of that and you long for a squaw. Not just for her quim between her legs, mind you, but her ability to find good things to eat in the woods.’

‘Why are we going so fast?’ I asked, sipping water. ‘I’m so sore that I feel like I’ve been stretched on the rack.’

‘Fast? We’re like snails on a carpet, so vast is this country. Do you think the sun will linger forever? At Grand Portage she will turn back south, a lover bidding goodbye, and the days will begin to shorten. Always in our mind is the return of the ice! We paddle to beat the ice! We drive hard to give the North Men time to return to their posts in Upper Canada before their watery highways freeze solid. The winter is good for travel, yes, if you have snowshoes, but not for carrying freight.’

‘But at this rate we’ll be there before the rendezvous.’

‘Don’t worry, sorcerer, we’ll have wind and storm enough on Superior to keep us penned. That lake is cold as a witch’s heart, and she never lets a man cross freely.’