by John Wilson
A sigh of agreement passed around the circle. To live without fear, that would be something worth trading for. The noise died away as the okimah began speaking again.
“Yes, that would indeed be good, but would we truly live without fear? Trade goes two ways, and we have seen that these strangers are traders. Two caribou skins for a single hatchet is not a good trade.” The warrior flinched. He knew it was not a good trade, and he could hear murmurs of agreement from the crowd. He had lost a point in the argument.
“But to trade for the wonders we see here,” the okimah continued, “we must give something the strangers want. That is the nature of trade. We know these kawaaposit come from far away, but we do not know how many there are of them. Perhaps there are many, like the rocks on the beach. If our enemies need to fear us with the strangers’ weapons, need we not fear these strangers themselves?”
“They are only a few in one canoe,” the warrior interrupted, “and they are sick and hungry. We could easily kill them all if we wished.”
“Let us not talk of killing. They have not attacked us. Nevertheless, where some come, others may follow, and they may not be sick and hungry. If they see benefit to trade with us, they will surely come in their big canoes with wings. And note this, too. If there is benefit for them in trading with us, will there not also be benefit for them in trading with our enemies?”
A worried murmur swept through the crowd. Sensing the people were swinging to his way of thinking, the okimah continued before the warrior could say anything. “If our enemies need fear us with the weapons of these strangers, should we not fear our enemies twice as much if they have the weapons?”
The noise of the crowd swelled.
“I say,” the okimah said, his voice rising against the increased background noise, “that we should have no contact with these kawaaposit. If they starve, it will not be our concern. If they return home, they will have nothing in trade and no reason to bother us again.”
The crowd now openly agreed with the okimah. The warrior had no more arguments to give. He had lost. Perhaps it was for the best. He would not return to the strangers’ camp.
FIVE
It was good to be walking and I soon warmed up. The beach was clear and the going easy. The only problem was that I couldn’t stop my mind from working. Like a dog worrying a bone, it kept going over what I had seen. It even seemed to make an odd kind of sense.
I knew something of Henry Hudson from a project I’d done for social studies in school, and I had even read a book about him. It had been the only thing I could find in the library and had been old-fashioned but quite interesting. It was based on a journal kept by one of Hudson’s crew. The crewman had such an unlikely name that I still remembered it—Abacuck Prickett. I figured things were different four hundred years ago, but I still had trouble imagining going through life with a handle like that.
Hudson had left London in 1610 to search for the Northwest Passage to the Orient. It was his fourth voyage. Previously he had explored a possible Northeast Passage around the north of Russia and sailed up what was now the Hudson River in New York. This time he was convinced he knew the answer and a year or two would see him returning home with a shipload of valuable spices.
With Hudson sailed his son, John, who had been on his earlier voyages, and several men who had sailed with him before. Among them was the mate, Robert Juet, with whom Hudson had quarrelled before, and a friend, Henry Greene, who had been staying at Hudson’s house.
After exploring Ungava Bay, Hudson’s ship made a perilous passage of Hudson Strait, which had been named the Furious Overfall by the explorer John Davis when he had seen huge pieces of ice rushing through it in 1587. When Hudson reached the large body of water beyond, he was convinced he was within reach of Japan. He was horribly disappointed when, after sailing down the eastern shore of Hudson Bay, he ended up in James Bay and was faced with a western shore blocking his way. Since it was too late in the season to return, the ship’s crew settled in for the winter.
It was a hard time, with scurvy running rampant and only minimal contact with the local First Nations. One man died. When the ice finally released the ship in June 1611, the sick and weakened crew were desperate to head home before what little food they had left ran out. Hudson, on the other hand, wanted to continue exploring and sailed aimlessly around James Bay.
This was too much, and the crew, led by Juet and Greene, cast Hudson, his son, Staffe, and the sickest of the rest adrift to die in one of the ship’s boats. No one ever discovered what happened to them.
The saga of Henry Hudson was one of murder and mystery, and it fascinated me. Was Hudson a poor leader who couldn’t control his crew, or were the crew a bunch of hardened villains? Why did Hudson take Juet with him? Juet was, after all, a man who had led a mutiny against Hudson on a previous occasion. Why did he take Greene, someone who had to be sneaked aboard at Gravesend, was not on the crew list, and was to be paid directly from Hudson’s pocket? What did happen to Hudson’s lonely boat after it was cast adrift?
All these questions came flooding back to me as I went over the visions I had recently witnessed. Despite my skepticism and my fear of ghosts, I was in little doubt that what I had witnessed had been images of events that had occurred in 1611. The specific presence of Juet, Greene, Staffe, and Prickett proved it. I was less sure whether I had watched a ghostly reenactment played out in some supernatural fog, or whether my overstressed mind had created hallucinations based on what I had read years before. Either way it was a disturbing series of events. Did ghosts really exist, or was I going crazy? At least now the fog had lifted and the world, in the bright morning sunlight, had returned to normal.
I was so wrapped up in my thoughts and worries that I almost fell over the figure sitting on the beach. It had its back to me and was gazing out to sea, as preoccupied with its thoughts as I was with mine. Whoever it was must be a member of the local First Nations and must have a boat or all-terrain vehicle close by. Maybe I could scrounge a ride back to Dad’s camp. I put on my friendliest smile. “Hello,” I said cheerfully.
Startled by my voice, the figure leaped to its feet and turned to face me. My smile died. The cold horrors of the fog rushed back over me. I knew this face. It was thinner than I remembered it—painfully thin—and the eyes, surrounded by dark shadows were sunk deep into their sockets. But they still had the sparkle I remembered. It was the boy who had smiled at me from the ghostly rowboat as we passed in the fog.
Everything I had planned to say vanished from my mind. “You!” was all I could gasp.
“Aye,” the boy replied, “and ’tis you, the salvage from the small boat.”
“Salvage?” I asked.
“Aye,” he repeated, “sauvage, as the French say, man of the woods, native of these parts. Yet you look not like the others we have seen.” A frown crossed his face. “And you speak the king’s English passably well. How can this be?”
I ignored his question and asked one of my own, even though I dreaded the answer. “What’s your name?”
“I am named John,” he said, stepping forward and holding out his hand. “But most call me Jack.”
“And your other name?” I ignored the outstretched hand. “What’s your family name?”
The puzzled look returned. “Why, Hudson.”
“And your father is Henry Hudson, the explorer?” I had to be certain.
“Aye,” he responded proudly, “a great explorer. Greater than Willoughby, Davis, or Frobisher. But how know you such things?”
Again I ignored his question. Retreating, I sat heavily on the beach. The nightmare hadn’t ended. The fog had gone and there was colour in this world now, but it wasn’t my world. Or not his. One of us was wrong.
“What year is this?” I asked.
John Hudson still stood with his hand held out, looking down at me. “The year of our Lord 1611. As close I can calculate, around the middle of the month of August.”
The middle of August 1611. My
mind rebelled. “No!” I almost shouted. “It’s Saturday, the first of September, 2001.”
“Well,” he continued calmly, “Saturday it may well be. I might even allow for it being nearer the month of September than my calculations, but even with the uncertainties of our calendar in the dire straits we find ourselves, it is most definitely the year 1611.” His face brightened at a new thought. “But you keep not the same calendar as us, being in no way Christian. Are you one of the Lost Tribes of Israel?”
“No,” I replied in confusion. “I’m Christian. United Church. It is the year 2001 after the birth of Christ.”
John Hudson finally withdrew his hand and hunkered down on the rocks beside me. “This is passably strange,” he said thoughtfully. “It cannot be both 1611 and 2001. Yet we are both convinced of our own facts. This is truly a most unusual land we have come to visit.”
My fear had diminished as we sat talking, apparently normally, on the reassuringly uncomfortable stones of the beach. Then I remembered the oar that had hit, yet not hit, my head. I had to find something out.
“My name is Alfred Lister,” I said, holding my hand out, “but my friends call me Al.”
“Well, Alfred. I am much pleased to make your acquaintance, despite the strange circumstances of it.”
He reached out and took my hand in his. I tensed, half expecting nothing but a cold draft as we touched, but it was an ordinary handshake. My companion’s hand was skinny, and I could feel the bones when I gripped it, but the skin felt warm and alive and his grip was firm. I returned the smile that now wreathed his pale face. I didn’t have the slightest idea what was happening, but at least knowing the figure before me was solid and not a wraith comforted me a bit.
“However this has come about,” he continued, “will you come, Alfred, to our meagre camp and meet my father and the others? It is not far.”
I wasn’t sure. A short while ago I had been happily walking along the beach toward my father’s camp. Now I was being invited to visit another camp that had existed almost four hundred years before I was even born! It was insane. But what choice did I have? Either John Hudson had travelled in time and his camp wouldn’t exist and we could proceed on to mine, or I had travelled in time and there would be little point in trying to find my father. In any case, I instinctively liked this strange boy. Despite the apparent impossibility of our meeting and his odd way of speaking, I felt at ease with him. The possibility that he existed in my time but was subject to insane delusions crossed my mind, but I dismissed it. It couldn’t explain the happenings in the fog, and my new friend seemed completely sane.
“All right,” I replied. “I’d like to visit your camp. But on the condition that you call me Al.”
Hudson laughed. “I see you like not your given name. Very well, Al it shall be. But in your turn, you must address me as Jack. There is nought remiss with John, yet all address me as Jack since, as a stripling, I ascended without fear a tall oak in the manner of the old tale of the giant killer and the beanstalk.”
“Okay,” I said, unable to stop smiling at the happy chatter of my companion. “I’ll call you Jack.”
Standing, Jack Hudson led the way along the beach. Despite the disorientation I felt at the impossible events of the morning, a part of me hoped it was really happening. Perhaps, somehow, I had really travelled in time. As I followed the figure into the unknown, I couldn’t help feeling this was a much better way to find out about the past than rooting around in ancient garbage piles. What would Dad give to be wherever I was right now? I was on my way to meet Henry Hudson, famous explorer and the subject of four centuries of speculation. It might be impossible, but it was certainly exciting.
Again the warrior was watching an intruder in his land, but this time there was just one of them. It was high summer, and the warrior had come to the shore to fish. Fortunately he had seen the seated figure first.
It was one of the strangers from the winter. He looked hungry and sat looking out over the great water. The warrior was confused. He had watched the strangers leave in their winged canoe soon after the ice had broken. That had been almost two cycles of the moon ago. Why had this one returned? Where were his companions? Where was the winged canoe? What did the return mean?
As he observed, a second figure approached from the north. This was one the warrior did not recognize. He was dressed differently, in short leggings and a tight shirt, and seemed hardly aware of the world around him. In fact, he almost fell over the first figure. Then the two began talking in their odd tongue and set off along the beach.
The warrior followed, paralleling the beach yet hidden by the undergrowth. At times the newcomer appeared to suspect his presence and nervously scanned the trees. Once, he stared directly at the warrior for some time. But the warrior was too skilled in bushcraft to allow himself to be seen, especially by someone who obviously did not make the forest his home.
The stream where the fish were good was not far. There was a clearing there the warrior would have to cross before the strangers arrived if he was to avoid being seen. Lengthening his stride, the warrior increased his pace through the trees and soon left the two figures on the beach behind. But there was a surprise awaiting him at the clearing. Instead of an open space he could cross quickly, there was a camp. A crude shelter sat in the middle of the clearing and a long wreath of smoke rose from a fire pit in front of it. It was obviously the work of the strangers; none of his people would be so careless or untidy. Yet there was still no sign of the winged ship. One of the smaller canoes was pulled up on the beach, but that was all.
As the warrior watched, the first two figures arrived. One of them shouted something. In response Hairy Face emerged from the shelter. He looked even hungrier than the boy. The warrior was extremely puzzled. Obviously there were not as many strangers here as had been at the winter camp and obviously they were in some distress. What had happened? Had the large canoe been wrecked?
The warrior would not approach the strangers again, but he would watch. Watch and wait until he had answers to some of his questions.
SIX
Silently I followed Jack along the beach. Now I had a chance to observe him. He was about my height and, as far as I could guess, my age. He looked weak but walked strongly, although he stumbled occasionally on the uneven rocks of the beach. He was wearing a loose, grey, three-quarter-length woollen jacket, pulled in by a broad leather belt. A knife was tucked through the belt in the middle of his back, and a small leather pouch dangled over his right hip. His trousers were baggy and dark red. They were pulled tight about his legs just below his knees. He was wearing long stockings that disappeared beneath his trousers and soft, shapeless leather shoes. On his head was a woollen cap of the same red as his trousers, from beneath which his dark hair hung in an unruly mat. His clothing looked comfortable but very old-fashioned.
We walked for about ten minutes, both lost in our own thoughts. Gradually an unsettling feeling that we were being watched grew in my mind. It was similar to the sensation I’d had in the fog. Then there had been ghosts all around me, but this time it seemed that someone, or something, in the trees was watching Jack and me. I kept glancing over but could see nothing suspicious, just the trees and the dark spaces between them. Jack appeared not to be bothered, and that helped me fight the urge to break into a run.
Eventually we came to a clearing by the beach. I recognized the place. My father’s camp at the big rock lay a long way to the south. Apparently I had paddled a lot farther north than I had thought.
A sluggish stream flowed across the clearing. Beside it, a boat was drawn up on the shore—the one I had seen in the fog. The ground to my left was rocky with occasional patches of grass and a few stunted trees. On a low rock outcrop a rude shelter had been constructed. It was square, measured about three metres on each side, and was high enough for a short man to stand upright in. The walls were constructed of roughly cut saplings interwoven with branches. The roof appeared to be of similar construction. It
looked sturdy enough, but I doubted it would keep out much wind or rain. A small fire pit in the doorway sent up a long wisp of smoke.
Farther away, on the flat ground in front of the rock outcrop, was a larger fire pit with boulders arranged in a semicircle around it. On the other side of the clearing, two crude crosses stood above mounds of rock, which I assumed with a shudder were graves.
I hesitated in confusion, but Jack didn’t stop. Without breaking stride he walked toward the hut. “Father!” he called.
A figure emerged, stooping to negotiate the makeshift doorway. Despite the sun, he was dressed in a long dark blue coat with a thick fur collar. The coat was cinched by a leather belt that also held a long-bladed knife. On the man’s head was a wool cap similar to Jack’s but with long ear flaps on either side. As he stood, I got a good look at his face. It seemed even more starved than John’s. The sunken eyes and prominent cheekbones highlighted what was already a long, thin face. The skin was weather-beaten and wrinkled, and grey hair straggled from beneath his cap. A matching grey beard covered his cheeks and chin. The eyes were the same pale blue as his son’s, yet the sparkle was missing. They looked haunted.
“Ah, Jack,” the man said as he came forward, “Staffe and Wydhowse have gone hunting, and I would talk with you before their return. What would be—” The man stopped in mid-sentence as his gaze fell on me.
In the pause Jack took the opportunity to speak. Half turning, he waved his arm in my direction. “I have found a companion. He is not like the salvages we have seen and has an odd sense of the year. Yet he professes to the Christian faith, speaks a version of English, and may be of use in our predicament. He goes by the name of Al.” With a smile Jack gestured to the bearded man. “Al,” he said, “this is my father, the explorer Henry Hudson.”
For a moment we regarded each other carefully. Then Hudson stepped forward and held out his hand. “How do you do Master Al? I am much honoured to make your acquaintance.”
