Heart So Hungry (28 page)

Unfortunately she was afforded no time to contemplate the dilemma. The women and children took each member of her party, including herself, by the hands and, laughing and grinning and nodding, pulled them up the path toward their camp. It was all Mina could do to keep a smile on her face.

She had to admit, though, that the panoramic view of Resolution Lake from the top of the hill was breathtaking, and that the camp itself was picturesque. But she was finding it difficult to revel in her latest accomplishment, and felt rather like a child who, shown a bowl full of candy, is warned, “Isn’t it pretty? Don’t touch!”

She refused to give in to her misery. No white person had ever before seen one of these interior camps, so she knew how important it was to be observant. She later made extensive entries in her notebook, describing the camp as consisting of one oblong wigwam and one round wigwam, each with walls of deerskin stretched over poles. By looking through the doorway of the larger, oblong wigwam she could see that the interior was kept very neat, the dirt floor covered with freshly cut boughs of fragrant balsam. All possessions, such as white enamel tea sets, dishes, pans and rifles, were clean and well cared for and placed out of the way in an orderly fashion.

Through translated conversations Mina learned how poor the camp was. The women and children, while the men were away, had nothing to live on but the fish they could catch, and their luck with fishing was not great. At the moment there was no tea or sugar or tobacco anywhere in camp.

George said, “They have no idea that the caribou are so near. But even if they did, all the hunters are away at Davis Inlet.”

“If only we had known,” said Mina. “How easily you and the others could have killed some caribou for them.”

Afterward Mina wandered about the camp, followed by several children and dogs. The women seemed more interested in her crew, and openly flirted with the men, running their hands along the men’s arms and tugging at the hair at the napes of their necks. Mina
found all of this amusing but in a bittersweet way; the camp was so poor, the women’s clothing so plain and unadorned, the eyes of the hungry children so haunting.

It was not long before Mina announced that her party must return to their canoes; a long journey lay ahead. When George passed this information on in Montagnais, several women again seized the men by the hands and urged them to stay. After one exchange Job’s eyes lit up particularly bright, and a broad smile creased his face.

George interpreted for Mina. “Apparently we can have as many wives as we wish,” he said. “Temporarily, of course. If we promise to stay awhile longer.”

Mina blushed. “In that case we had better leave right now. Before I lose my crew.”

Had she not been faced with the prospect of a long, uncertain journey, Mina would have gladly shared her provisions with the Indians and would have sent her men back to hunt for as much caribou as they could carry. She regretted being unable to do so. But two months’ travel to Ungava! Her mind was still reeling with this information, her stomach queasy.

Once again on the shore of Lake Resolution, however, she could not resist sending George back up the hill with a small gift, a bag containing a few ounces of tea. As a result George was literally swarmed by the women, who danced up and down in delight. They offered him a new pair of moccasins in return, but it was too much, he told them, too valuable, and he could not accept.

Before taking to the water again, Job, who rarely spoke in English, stood up tall in the stern of his canoe. He whipped off his hat and made a very elegant bow to the women on the hillside. “Goodbye! Goodbye, my ladies!” he called.

His was the last smile among Mina’s party for the next several hours, for without a word they pointed their canoes northward and paddled down the lake. Nobody mentioned the prospect of turning
back or turning east toward Davis Inlet, though the information that Ungava lay two months ahead weighed heavily on all their minds. It was with silent and sullen determination that they pushed forward, down through Resolution and ten miles beyond. There, where the river dropped through a series of three rocky gorges, they made their night’s camp.

After supper, when the men brought out their pipes—though more sombrely than ever before—Mina knew she could avoid the subject no longer. “Do you think it can possibly take us two more months?” she asked.

Joe said, “I just don’t see how that can be right. We made ten miles easy just this afternoon. Down on the lower George we should be able to do fifty miles a day.”

Gilbert said, “We should have asked if they’ve ever been to Ungava. Maybe they’ve never even been there.”

“You know,” George said, “I think that’s right. Not if they do all their trading at Davis Inlet.”

Mina was quick to seize upon the possibility. “I knew two months couldn’t be accurate!”

“But even if it’s off by half,” George pointed out, “we’ll still miss the
Pelican.”

Again her spirits fell. “Well,” she said, “what shall we do?”

The others all looked to George. “I’m for pushing on,” he said.

“Same here,” said Gilbert.

Joe said, “Wouldn’t make any sense to turn back now.”

Only Job remained silent. He sat motionless, his eyes on the fire.

Gilbert said, “Job’s still thinking about all those women back there. That’s where he wants to go.”

Mina offered a smile. “Job?” she asked.

He looked across the fire at her, deadpan. A moment later he returned her smile. “Ungava first,” he said. “Make women miss me more.”

The day after leaving the Montagnais camp, they made another twenty-two miles, and though the men still bent to their paddles with grim determination, Mina felt better about their decision not to turn back. It could not possibly take another two months to reach Ungava—not, she decided, unless they had to walk the entire way.

The portages over the next two days, however, were never longer than a half-mile each, and the swiftness of the river more than compensated for the slowness of those short hikes. And on the morning of August 20, a Sunday, Mina awoke in a high state of expectancy. As she later described the premonition, “It seemed this morning as if something unusual must happen. It was as if we were coming into a hidden country. From where the river turned into the hills it flowed for more than a mile northward through what was like a great magnificent corridor, leading to something larger beyond.”

She and her party had slept three times since leaving the Montagnais camp, and the women there had told her that the Naskapi hunting camp was but two sleeps away. So she fully expected to encounter the Naskapi not far ahead. For that reason she decided that her party would forego its Sunday of rest and travel on.

Joe and Gilbert were the first to get their canoe loaded and onto the river. The water that morning appeared dark and still, like shiny black glass. But with only a few strokes the canoe pulled far ahead of the one still on shore, and from this Mina knew how strong the current truly was.

In time George and Job brought the second canoe close to the first, and all four men settled into a steady rhythm of paddling. By now there was a kind of harmony to their dipping and pulling, a music Mina found soothing. She sat with her notebook open on her lap, meaning to write in it, but instead she kept scanning the countryside, alternating between hope and fear.

“In the distance we could see the mountain tops standing far apart,” she later wrote, “and knew that there, between them, a lake must lie. Could it be Indian House Lake, the
Mush-au-wau-ni-pi
, or
‘Barren Grounds Water,’ of the Indians? We were still farther south than it was placed on the map I carried. Yet we had passed the full number of lakes given in the map above the water. Even so I did not believe it could be the big lake I had been looking forward to reaching so eagerly.”

To this point they had progressed little more than three miles. Then George sat up very straight and shouted, “There it is!” High on a hill stood a covered wigwam. Within seconds another wigwam came into view. Then the small dark figure of someone walking leisurely between the wigwams.

“He doesn’t see us yet,” Mina said.

No sooner had she spoken than the person on the hill stopped walking. He cupped a hand over his eyes and stood motionless. Then he turned toward one of the wigwams. Though he could not be heard down on the water, it was obvious that he had called out, for immediately several individuals came racing out of the wigwams to look toward the water.

Cautiously, the canoes drew closer. Now Indians were hurrying back and forth over the hill, running from one wigwam to the other, alerting the camp. It wasn’t long before dozens of people stood gathered on the hill. A man holding a rifle came to the foreground, the weapon raised in the air with one hand. Then the crack of two rifle shots echoed down to the water.

Mina answered with a shot from her revolver.

Another shot from the Naskapi. Another shot from Mina.

Ten or so men came trotting down a well-worn path toward the water’s edge. But instead of coming all the way to the shore they stopped behind a line of spruce trees just above a sandy landing point. There they launched into an animated discussion.

Mina’s party kept their distance too, holding the canoes twenty yards from shore. “Bo
jour!”
George called.
Bonjour!

He was answered by a chorus of a half-dozen voices. “Bo
jour! Bo jour!”

George then called out to them in Cree, and with that the Naskapi came striding through the trees and down to the river. Mina asked, “What did you say to them?”

“I said, ‘We are strangers and are passing through your country.’”

Mina’s canoe was the first to pull ashore. As it did so, one of the Naskapi drew apart from the others. He came forward and caught the bow of the canoe. From his regal bearing Mina knew he was the chief.

“Of course you have some tobacco?” he said.

George told him, “Only a little. We have come far.”

With this the chief held out his hand to George in friendship, and George took it gladly.

Mina was nervous, unable to forget Gilbert’s speculation earlier about the Indians’ possibly hostile intentions, but she was nonetheless observant.

The chief asked George, “Where did you come onto the river?”

“We have come the whole length of the river. Up the Naskapi and through Michikamau.”

The chief’s eyebrows lifted. “It is a long journey.”

“Very long,” George said.

“I have been to Northwest River, many years ago. But I know the way.” The chief then turned to the men gathered behind him and related all this to them. All came forward and gathered close to George, eager to hear more.

“We are going down the river to the post at Ungava,” George told them. The chief’s reply made George grin from ear to ear. Beaming, he turned to Mina.

“What?” she asked. “What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Oh! You are near now.’”

“How near? How near are we?”

George asked the chief, “How near?”

“You will sleep only five times if you travel fast.”

When Mina heard the translation, she felt like leaping out of the canoe. Not two months from Ungava, as the Montagnais women had said, but a mere five days! She felt dizzy with relief, giddy with the joy of it. But the discussion was continuing fast and furious now between George and the Naskapi and she did not wish to miss a word of it. She did her best to let George decide when to turn and interpret for her, but it was hard not to blurt out every ten seconds or so, “What did he say?”

“And how is the river from here to Ungava?” George asked.

“Very fast,” he was told.

“Many rapids?”

“Rapids all the way. Some this steep,” indicated by an arm held out at a slight angle, the fingers pointing down, “and some this steep,” with the elbow pointing into the air.

“How many portages?”

“A few. Not too many.”

“And not long,” another man said. “A short lift over the falls.”