Voyageurs Read online

  Praise for Voyageurs:

  “The illusion of a past time is beautifully sustained by Elphinstone's detailed re-creations of indigenous (mostly Native American and Canadian) period detail, and by her narrator's reserved and wondering voice, whose lilting, dignified rhythms perfectly capture his unshakeable goodness and innocence. . . . A stunning work of historical fiction, with many points of comparison to Canadian Guy Vanderhaeghe's The Last Crossing.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “With grandly accessible language and brilliant strokes Margaret Elphinstone re-creates a place within which we learn much of the capability of the human heart to endure and quicken with hope. The time is both dramatically distant and unsettlingly close to our own . . . it speaks plainly and eloquently of matters grave and dark, of beauties still possible, of a world with faith and mystery. A remarkable triumph.”

  —Jeffrey Lent, author of In the Fall

  “A marvelous . . . rich and moving . . . historical novel . . . Elphinstone has created a humble and courageous hero, a man historically and culturally remote, but strikingly relevant to our own age of war.”

  —Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor (2004 Noteworthy Book)

  “A meticulously crafted, self-reflexive historical novel . . . Elphinstone [has a] mastery of early-nineteenth-century argot.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Elphinstone rivets with her descriptions of portages along precipitous cliffs and voyages down raging rivers and across treacherous lakes.”

  —Library Journal

  “Elphinstone brings the landscapes and peoples of 1800s Canada back to thrilling life in her pacy, colorful, and intelligent epic.”

  —Independent (London)

  “Mark's appealingly innocent, hopeful voice is the greatest achievement of an artfully woven fiction also graced by totally convincing re-creations of the furnishings, folkways, and attitudes of a vanished and partially understood past. Nothing compares with the bracing experience of becoming absorbed in the lives and conflicts of a bygone age, recreated by a novelist who has done the homework and imagined the remote past as a living presence.”

  —The Boston Globe

  VOYAGEURS

  Also by Margaret Elphinstone:

  The Incomer

  A Sparrow's Flight

  Islanders

  An Apple From A Tree (stories)

  The Sea Road

  Hy Brasil

  VOYAGEURS

  a novel

  Margaret Elphinstone

  Copyright © 2003 by Margaret Elphinstone

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].

  First published in Great Britain in 2003 by Canongate Books Ltd., Edinburgh, Scotland

  The publisher gratefully acknowledges subsidy from the Scottish Arts Council toward the publication of the volume.

  ISBN: 978-1-84195-643-5 (pbk.)

  eISBN: 978-0-8021-9151-9

  Text design by James Hutcheson

  Cover design by James Hutcheson

  Cover painting is Canoe Manned by Voyageurs Passing a Waterfall by Francis Anne Hopkins, 1869 (National Archives of Canada)

  Grove Atlantic

  154 West 14th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  www.groveatlantic.com

  For Henry

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to acknowledge the help and hospitality I've received from so many people during this long venture. I can't name them all, but I particularly wish to thank the following: in Cumberland: the Friends of Mosedale Meeting; Jocelyn Holland at Warwick-on-Eden. In Scotland: Ruth Fisken, Ian Begg and William Ramsay, all of Lochalsh; and Kenneth McManus for the Gaelic; also Tom Furniss, Cathy Kinnear and Helen Reid Thomas. And many thanks to Karen McCrossan, my editor at Canongate. In Quebec: Lilloette Naegele, Montreal, and Christine Conciatori of the McCord Museum of Canadian History, Montreal. In Ontario: The Friends of Toronto and Yonge Street Meetings, especially Marie Doan, Marilyn Church and Anna Cox at Yonge Street; also Elaine Bishop of Prairie Meeting. Thanks also to John Stevenson at the Canadian Canoe Museum, Peterborough; Barbara Naegele and Roger McDonnell, Ottawa; Alastair and Darlene Baird and family, Pembroke, for the Canadian Voyageur Adventure; Dave Harding at Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park; and Nancy Clark, Thunder Bay. Dianne Graves, historian, assisted in checking the manuscript before it fell under the all-seeing eye of her husband, Donald E. Graves, the well-known historian of the War of 1812.

  In Michigan: At Central Michigan University: I thank Steve Holder for allowing me to keep coming back to the English Department, Henry Fulton for suggesting Central Michigan University in the first place, and the staff in the Clarke Historical Library, especially Evelyn Leasher. Thanks also to Lisa Tiger of the Department of Native American Studies, and Ben Ramirez for the Ojibwa translations. I also wish to thank Charmaine Benz and the other staff of the Ziibiwiing Cultural Centre, Mount Pleasant; And many thanks to the following good friends for hospitality, introductions, information and encouragement: Jim Paucquette and Nedra Frodge, Pete and Mary Obuchowski, Ann and Colin Alton, all in Mount Pleasant; Mike Federspiel at Midland; Ann Bardens and Tom McClellan at Interlochen. For hunting, canoeing and bear stories I thank Larry Hilton at Frankfort and Randy Raymond at Clare. Thanks also to Tom and Marje Williams, and Bruce and Chris McAfee, of Bois Blanc Island, and to Michael White, Bois Blanc, for access to his notes.

  I'm grateful to my amateur voyageurs: Amanda Haworth Wiklund (second paddle and linguist) and Mike Brown (second paddle etc.)

  I also wish to acknowledge the help of the Scottish Arts Council, Central Michigan University, and the Hawthornden International Writers’ Retreat, Midlothian. In their various ways they all made it possible for me to write this book.

  EDITOR'S PREFACE

  WHEN I FOUND THE MANUSCRIPT, I LITTLE THOUGHT that it would contain such an extraordinary adventure. It had no title page. When I opened the foolscap notebook – which I did carefully, for the leather binding was quite brittle – I only saw closely-written lines of faded brown ink. The script was neat and plain, thank God, though the letters were curiously unformed, as if the writer had been unused to working with a pen. A Lakeland farmer, I supposed – and so indeed it proved – but this was no country tale of life in a quiet backwater, under the shadow of Blencathra. I began to read, and forgot what I was doing, and why I was up there in the dusty attic. I read on, and the words led me over the sea, across a continent, into a wild adventure way beyond anything I've experienced, or that anyone these days is likely to experience, anywhere at all. I took the book back down the ladder with me, and did no more work that day. I finished the tale, but the writer continued to haunt me. What if he'd decided otherwise? He doesn't admit how near to it he came, but reading between the lines, I saw how close we came to a very different ending. And what could possibly have happened then?

  I should explain that we bought Highside at the end of last year, from a farmer called Mark Greenhow. He'd lost his heft
ed flock to foot and mouth disease – only now do I even begin to understand what that might mean to a man like him – and a year ago he put the farm up for sale. When we came to take measurements, after the sale was complete, Greenhow was taciturn but not obstructive. The place suits us perfectly. There are direct trains from Penrith to London, an airport at Carlisle, and who wants to raise children in London these days? The builders arrived after we moved in, which was not according to plan, but if it hadn't worked out that way I might never have been prowling in the attic on that wet Sunday morning, thinking about my big study that was to run the length of the house, lit by new rooflights, with my work surface directly underneath, and bookshelves all along the back wall. There was no floor yet, just a few loose planks laid over the joists, but in one corner there were thick oak planks nailed down. The end one was loose, and in a moment of idle curiosity I prised it up, and found a little dry box-like space underneath, built in under the eaves. And in it, wrapped in a thin linen sheet, I discovered the manuscript.

  I've been busy enough the past few months, but I found time to look into things a little. The records office in the castle at Carlisle was helpful, and so were the local Quakers: there's still a Meeting at Mosedale, and I've got quite interested in it. After I'd talked to one or two people I decided there was no reason why I shouldn't publish the book myself. By this time the first Mark Greenhow had me hooked. Finally I took my courage in my hands and wrote to the present Greenhow. He was cannier than I expected, but with the publisher's help we eventually managed to make a deal.

  I've done a reasonable amount of editing. I've modernised the spelling, and made a few obvious corrections. Greenhow evidently never learned the gentle art of punctuation – except for the copious use of dashes – so I've put that in for him. Luckily his writing was seldom illegible. I've modifed his vocabulary on the rare occasions when it might be offensive to modern ears. On the whole he exhibits a remarkable tolerance for his time, but obviously he could not know the meaning of political correctness. He has attempted to transcribe phrases in French and Ojibwa as he heard them, and sometimes I had to puzzle out a meaning before I could render them coherent. I never heard anyone speak Ojibwa in my life, but my email correspondents were remarkably helpful.

  Mark's ‘footnotes’, in which he took such pride, are actually loose sheets of paper interleaved between the bound pages. I think he'd be pleased with the way I've laid them out on the page. His big foolscap notebook I discovered to be identical to those in which the Caldbeck Monthly Meeting Minutes are written, so he must have bought it from the same supplier.

  Otherwise I haven't altered the content. I've cut a good deal of the religious discourse, particularly in the women's letters (these were altogether the hardest parts to edit). Obviously it mattered to the writers at the time; I can't see that it would have any significance for the modern reader. I've added nothing – how could I? – though I must admit there were times when I grew frustrated with Mark. If it had only been Rachel, now . . . But history deals us what it will, and that is that.

  There are other questions I can't answer. Why did Mark write the story at all? Did any of his family ever read it? It would have been dynamite if they did. There is a notion among Quakers even now (for I have been doing my homework) concerning the need to speak the truth plainly. Perhaps he felt that he had to tell his story – that he had failed to tell the truth for twenty-seven years – and because he couldn't say it, he wrote it down instead. But this is mere speculation.

  Who hid the manuscript in the attic? My guess is it lay there for over a hundred years, for its condition was remarkably pristine, all things considered. Perhaps one of the boys put it there, thinking it shameful, but too important to destroy. Or his wife? Would she do that? Maybe Mark put it there himself. But, again, why? Surely a writer wishes to be read? Perhaps he wrote with a reader in mind – his wife, or one of his sons, perhaps – and when it came to handing it over, he found it couldn't be done. He wouldn't be the first, if that's the way it was.

  But I should move out of the way, and let him speak for himself.

  M.N.E.

  Highside, January 2003.

  CHAPTER 1

  Sixth Month, 1839

  WHERE TO BEGIN? WHEN I LOOK AT THAT FIRST LETTER now, the paper is soft with much folding, and the ink is beginning to turn brown. Aunt Judith has crossed her lines, and her script betrays signs of the moiderment under which she laboured. It is no matter; I have her words by heart, almost, and it is the work of a few moments to transcribe them:

  From the house of Thomas Nolan

  Ste Marie du Sault

  Upper Canada

  12th day of Ninth Month, 1809

  To my sister Susan at Highside, Mungrisdale, in Cumberland,

  This follows within a week of my last letter to thee, my dear sister, and if God wills it the ill news will overtake the good. Little did I think, when I described to thee our voyage from Niagara to York, and thence by the far-flung Quaker Meetings of Upper Canada to the Lake called Huron, where we visited several Indian villages upon the islands, and thence to this far outpost at the rapids of St Mary's, that I should have such terrible news to communicate to thee.

  I told thee in my last how the lad got off the sloop, and how when Rachel saved him the Scotchman stopped the fight and got her safe away to the house of a man called Ermatinger until the hue and cry died down, and how he saw us safe hack across the river. Would that that were all the story! Oh, my dear sister, what am I to say to thee? She has been so tender a companion, she seemed so clear in the Light, so zealous in our ministiy.

  Susan, I did not know she was meeting him. He came to our third meeting, and I thought the Truth had reached him. I knew nothing of the gatherings at the Johnston house. I knew there was dancing and singing, for we heard it even at the Nolans‘ when we lay in our beds at night, but I knew not that our very own ewe lamb was led astray into the wilderness, beguiled by that wolf in sheep's clothing.

  What can I say to thee? She left me a note, with her direction. They have gone south into the Michigan Territory, which is a part of the United States, in name anyway, for it is far beyond the settled frontier, peopled only by military outposts, trading stations and savage Indian tribes. The direction she gives is: La Maison de Madame Framboise, Mackinac Island, the Michigan Territory. She says she will be married before a priest at Mackinac. She says it is not possible that we should understand. I do not feel called upon to follow her.

  In Peace and with much sorrow,

  Thy loving sister, Judith Scott

  It was I that fetched this letter from the receiving office in Keswick, and brought it home to my mother. My heart leapt when the clerk passed me the letter, for we had heard nothing of our travellers for almost a year. (The letter Judith mentions had never reached us, and we had no notion what she meant by the lad from the sloop, and it was the first we had heard of the Scotchman altogether.) My mother was chopping rhubarb at the kitchen table when I came in, and I remember how she slit the wafer open with the sticky knife, not even pausing to wipe it. Her hands were trembling. A year is a long time, and one cannot help but fear for those called upon to minister in the wilderness.

  When our first grief was spent, I wrote to Rachel more than once, but there was never any reply. She was indeed lost to us. About three months after Judith's first letter came, she sent another, enclosing a copy of the Minute that recorded my sister's disownment from our Religious Society. Judith says,

  Friends here have asked me to send thee this copy of the Minute from our Monthly Meeting here at Yonge Street, disowning thy daughter, my beloved niece Rachel, no longer in unity with us since she was married with a priest, contrary to the rules of our Religious Society, to the Scotchman named Alan Mackenzie, an employee of the North West Company. Thee would know, if thee was familiar with these parts, that the North West enjoys a monopoly of the fur trade from here almost, so I believe, to the Pacific shore, to the detriment of all sober independent traders
. Its clerks, like its owners, are mostly Highland Scotchmen, and notorious for their ungodly manner of life. It is more usual, indeed, for them to take women among the Indians, in the heathen fashion, and not to be doing with any kind of marriage at all. How it was that Rachel should have been persuaded to elope by this young man I could not have conceived, had I not met him. But – and perhaps this will be some small comfort to thee in thy distress – I did meet him, on the occasion of the brawl that was fought on the jetty at the Soo, when Rachel . . . but I recounted that incident in my last, and would not have thee pay an extra sixpence for me to repeat myself (assuming that my first letter did reach thee). His conduct on that occasion perhaps explains the predilection shown by Rachel for his society, and indeed I was not myself unmoved by his kind goodwill towards us, although I cannot condone the violent means he used to scatter our adversaries.

  There was little comfort in this, but my parents bore all courageously. Only sometimes my mother would say, ‘But why does Rachel not write to us, Mark? Why can she not write?’ I had no answer to give. We prayed for Rachel every day, and gradually I stopped looking eagerly for a letter every time I went to the Receiving Office in Keswick.

  But when the third letter from Aunt Judith came more than a year later, I realised when I read it that I had been living in hope after all. I have that letter before me now:

  In the care of Yonge Street Meeting

  Beman's Corners

  Province of Upper Canada

  21st day of Eleventh Month, 1810

  To my sister Susan at Highside, Mungrisdale (and my good-brother Caleb Greenhow),

  I had thought the letter I had writ thee in eighth month of last year would be the hardest it were ever my ill-fortune to pen. I have not heard from thee again, so cannot even be sure that thee received my last. But – Oh, my poor Susan – the news I have now to relate is infinitely worse than the blow I had to inflict upon thee a twelvemonth since. Our dear daughter was lost to us then, out of unity with us by her own act. But at least we might hope she would find a measure of worldly happiness with the man she had chosen, even though she had cast off her family and her Religious Society, indeed, all that she had ever had, to place herself at his side. But now a circumstance has occurred more appalling than anything we might have conceived of. I enclose the young man's letter to me.