Mattie Mitchell

by Gary Collins

  Just before dark, he paddled into a tiny cove where a small brook ran through a narrow, crescent-shaped beach. He pulled his canoe well above the surf line, got a fire going using pieces of driftwood, placed his flat-bottom kettle over it to boil, and began cleaning a meal of herring for his supper.

  The following morning, before the wind came to the bay, Mattie paddled to where the lone lobster buoy tugged and bobbed on the tide. He reached for the buoy and, pulling in the slack, was soon directly over the sunken trap. He peered down and was surprised to see the dark brown body of a dead otter lying half in and half out of the lobster pot. His trap had worked perfectly. Over the next few days he pulled eleven otters from four lobster pots all carefully placed in the water below a fresh otter burry. When he returned home with the eleven pelts he was asked how he had done so well in such a short time. Mattie Mitchell simply replied, with an air of mystery, “I jest use ol’ Indian trick.”

  CHAPTER 4

  MATTIE LEFT THE COAST WHEN THE NIGHTS turned cold and the frost came. He headed for the long, sloping hills and the high mountain valleys beyond. These were the places he truly loved best. He had prolonged his winter trapline trip to correspond with the right travelling conditions.

  Before he had reached all the way into the high country beyond Bonne Bay, he realized he had waited too long. The snows were much deeper here, and before the first day of hard walking was through he had donned his homemade snowshoes. All of the belongings he would need for the entire winter were towed behind him on a small wooden sled, or carried on his broad shoulders in a packsack.

  He spent the first night in a makeshift shelter that he had built just before the early dark, and dozed through the long winter night beside a small fire he kept burning. The second night he sheltered in a temporary tilt situated along his trapline route. The close of the third snowy day found him at the door of his wigwam.

  The spoor of game was not as prevalent along the way as he had hoped. In the coastal valleys he had left behind, many of the white settlers were augmenting their lean summer fishing with fur trapping. But few white men came here to the mountains. Many of the places he trapped were exclusive to him alone. He seldom saw anyone, Indian or white. Still, from his observations along the way, good signs of the fur-bearing animals he hunted and trapped were scarce.

  From his pack and sled he carried the scanty provisions inside his winter teepee. A small bag of tea—which wouldn’t last him the winter—and a smaller bag of coarse sugar, along with a quart tin of blackstrap molasses, he put inside and hung from the rafter poles. These three items, he knew, would be used up first. It was his one weakness for the white man’s food: Mattie Mitchell had a sweet tooth. About fifteen pounds of flour and a small bag of pale white salt crystals that would need some crushing completed his supply.

  As was his wont, Mattie patrolled around his immediate camping area the very next morning. He was eager to scout around the outlying valleys and hills. He travelled along on snowshoes over the virgin snow. Down each hidden forest glade and unmarked trace he stepped joyfully along.

  In his left hand he carried a long-barrelled Martin Henry rifle that had seen much use. In his pocket were four brass bullets for the gun. They were the only ammunition he owned. In his right hand he held a sharp axe that he frequently swung at low-hanging limbs that were in his way. He paid careful attention to every detail as if he were seeing it all for the first time.

  He was crossing a small stream. Its snowy banks, now well above the running water, indicated that over the years it had been well used to a deeper, swifter flow. Directly across the brook from him was a recently foundered gravel bank that the slowly moving water had only partly washed away. When the cut-bank had occurred, probably during last spring’s melt, it had exposed a large, brown, rust-stained, jutting outcrop of rock, its base not yet washed clean by the low water levels of the stream. For years Mattie had used this stream for crossing. He had not seen the rock formation before.

  The different and out of the ordinary always drew his eye. He crossed the brook in a few quick strides, the frigid water leaving a wet mark halfway up the calf of his leather boots. Standing at the base of the jagged cliff, Mattie tried to understand what it was he was seeing and immediately knew where he had seen it before.

  IT WAS DURING HIS TIME SPENT GUIDING for the Newfoundland-born geologist James Patrick Howley and Howley’s mentor, Scottish-born Alexander Murray. Both men treated Mattie with respect. Just three years Mattie’s junior, Howley treated him as an equal.

  Howley held Mattie Mitchell in such high esteem as to recommend his delightful Indian guide to the Newfoundland government as the finest of men and the best of guides. Mattie called Howley “Sage,” the Mi’kmaq word for James. James Howley always called Mattie “Matthieu.”

  Mattie had been a single young man of twenty in 1864, yet his remarkable skills and wilderness knowledge were well-known, from the tiny villages of Halls Bay on the northeast coast of the island to the mountain fjords of the west coast. Murray and Howley were in the employ of the Newfoundland government to determine and document the island’s resources.

  The last time any serious inquiry into the natural resources of this, tenth of the world’s largest islands, had been done was back in 1839, when the geologist Joseph Beete Jukes had done preliminary work here. Jukes had primarily conducted coastal surveys with few forays into what the white men considered— because they hadn’t ventured there—the “fearful” wilderness of this remarkable island.

  One of the few interior expeditions Jukes did make was up the mouth of the smooth Humber River as far as the long, narrow Deer Lake. This had been a relatively easy exploratory excursion for the geologist. It had been made all that much easier by the expert guiding skills provided by the west coast Mi’kmaq Indians which Jukes seldom named.

  Murray and his eager protege, Howley, would do more than explore the coastal regions of this unique North Atlantic nation. They were tasked by the government, and quite willingly intended, to traverse as much of the landscape as possible, including the hinterland. They loved their job. It would take the two paid pioneers many years of diligent, meticulously documented surveying, and even then they had only skimmed a few places of the vast interior of this intricate island.

  Alexander Murray was a geologist born on June 2, 1810, in “Dollierie House,” Crieff, Scotland. He was the very first director of the Geological Survey of Newfoundland. He came to the island in 1864 and was enthralled with all of its largely unspoiled, unexplored—at least by the white population— territory. It was as much unlike his country as it was possible to be. Murray stayed here until 1884, when he returned to Scotland. He died in Belmont Cottage in Crieff, Scotland, the following year at the age of seventy-four.

  Mattie Mitchell, at twenty-two years of age, met the fifty-six-year-old Murray in 1866. They were joined by Newfoundland’s own geologist, James Howley, two years later. The two geologists would walk the hills, scale the cliffs, walk and sometimes float downstream, and make their difficult way against river currents for more than twenty years. And guiding them on all of their major forays was the Indian Mattie Mitchell.

  Up the Indian River from Halls Bay he led them in the month of June, when the flies feed in swarms. Or, as Murray put it: “The black buggers have voracious apatite, and tek a mon’s bluid so that I wonder the greate horrads of them aire not redd.”

  South, and away from the waters that run east into the Notre Dame Bay, Mitchell led them to the west- and south-running waters of the huge Humber River system, which pours into the Bay of Islands on Newfoundland’s west coast. Murray and Howley kept carefully written records and mapped their expeditions. They took note of great tracts of timber that took days to walk through, and the rivers to get them to potential sawmills and markets. They noted powerful waterfalls and deep waters, and fish stocks as well as their spawning beds. The explorers came upon veins of coal, copper, lead, zinc, and traces of gold. The host rocks of the minerals, and in come
cases their compass bearings, were entered accurately into their well-thumbed ledgers.

  They talked about their findings as they wrote them down at the end of every long day. The men showed Mattie how to identify minerals, realizing early on that his incredible eye for detail was a valued asset with their work. They showed him what to look for and told him, “Rocks never rust. Only metals rust.” And always their tall, quiet guide listened and would forever remember.

  Mattie held the Scotsman in high regard and some reverence. At almost every evening meal, Murray would clasp his hands together, bow his head, and say the grace of Scotland’s greatest bard, Robert Burns: “Some hae meat and cannae eat, some would eat that want it, but we hae meat and we can eat, sae let the Lord be thankit.” And when he finished, Mattie always said “Amen.”

  Mattie also considered Alexander Murray to be the toughest white man he knew, and with good reason.

  They were working in the Cape St. George area of the Port au Port peninsula. Murray was doing his usual detailed mapping of every brook he found and recording the potential resources. They had been in the area for a few days and had walked the entire sandy length of Long Point. Standing alone at its naked northernmost point, with a brisk summer wind rising from the gulf with the evening tide, Murray breathed deep of the sea air and quoted his beloved Robert Burns again: “Nae man can tether time or tide.”

  That next morning, it rained. They were making their sodden way to the narrow isthmus of the small peninsula late that evening, where they planned to spend the night. The men were hurrying, longing to get there. They had crossed it on the way out and had left their camp there in the east bay for their return.

  It was a magical place, surrounded by beaches, filled with seasoned grey driftwood that washed ashore from the huge western gulf. It made the best firewood. With hundreds of nesting waterfowl flying in from both the Port au Port and St. George’s Bay sides, they would dine on roasted duck tonight.

  It was their haste over the wet ground that took Murray down. Keeping pace with Mattie’s long steps ahead of him, Murray jammed his right foot into a rock crevice at the very extent of its back reach. When he pulled the leg, without breaking his stride, his anchored foot yanked him back like a spring. He fell forward, twisting sideways as he went down. When his crushing weight fell upon the twisted leg bone, his fibula cracked and he tore his Achilles tendon.

  The scream of pain that escaped the man’s clenched teeth stopped Mattie in his tracks. He rushed to Murray’s side. Murray was lying half on his side and half on his back, with both hands clasping his lower leg. His hat had come off. His packsack had shifted up over his round shoulders during the fall. He leaned his balding head back upon it, wincing in pain.

  His foot was still wedged between the rocks. Seeing what had to be done, Mattie helped Murray to his feet and pulled his foot back, freeing him. Murray’s face was flushed. His foot burned like fire. Sweat appeared on the cheekbones above his bearded jaws and beaded on his rain-soaked skin. He felt dizzy and staggered against Mattie’s chest. He thought he was going to faint, but the nauseous wave passed and he stood on one foot with an arm around Mattie’s shoulder.

  Murray knew he was in trouble. They were days away from any medical assistance. He wasn’t even sure if there was a doctor on the coast. Mattie helped him to their camp and laid him down upon his blanket inside the tent. When he removed Murray’s trousers, he discovered his leg was terribly bruised and badly swollen. After starting a fire outside their camp, Mattie quickly walked away in the damp evening.

  When he returned, he had in his hands a clump of moist black mud wrapped in thin, greenish yellow fronds of kelp. When he gently smeared the cooling mud over Murray’s swollen leg, the man sighed in instant relief and thanked him. Mattie covered the mud-encased lower leg and ankle with the wet, salty kelp. He used a piece of the kelp “belt” and tied it around the bandage to hold it all in place. That night, Murray sat framed by the firelight in the tent flap and entered his day’s work in his ledger.

  With a fire going outside their camp, the men discussed their options. An overland route to any of the settlements that might offer medical assistance was out of the question. Murray couldn’t walk, and for Mattie to carry him would only add to his agony. Mattie figured they should try and get a boat and sail either north to the Bay of Islands, or across St. George’s Bay and south to Port aux Basques.

  But the stubborn Murray would hear none of it. They would only get him to a doctor who would do little more than “administer their foule tasting concoctions. I weel go nowhaire,” he said.

  While the Scotsman mended, Mattie gathered eggs from the nesting seabirds. After boiling them, he soaked them in sea water overnight. They would last for days. He caught trout in the streams and speared flatfish in the shallow waters. He killed waterfowl with his bow and arrow. Once, Murray watched as he brought down a curious, slow-flying herring gull with one arrow. Mattie skinned the bird and, that evening, after he roasted it with two other seabirds, Murray couldn’t taste the difference between the seagull and the others.

  Murray was on his feet again in two days and, with the support of a crutch made by Mattie, started to hobble his way along. And with all of his pain, Murray never once complained or asked for favours from the other man.

  He never did seek medical attention for his ailment and continued with his work for years afterward. But for the rest of his life Alexander Murray walked with a limp. After his injury, Murray was offered and gladly accepted the services of Newfoundland-born geologist James Howley.

  JAMES PATRICK HOWLEY WAS BORN IN St. John’s on July 7, 1847. He was a geologist by profession, but as his work with Murray progressed, he became an excellent surveyor. Using his carefully described entries recorded in the field by the light of a smoky lantern and flickering campfire, he also added “Author” as another of his titles. Howley was Murray’s protégé. Murray was Howley’s mentor.

  Howley was always a very kind and devout man, courteous, easygoing, and generally a very pleasant man to be around. He was uncommonly strong, and walked tirelessly, or, as Mattie put it with a grin, “Sage ver’ strong man. Almos’ strong as me, maybe. ’E walk my walk, too.” Howley and Mattie Mitchell became good friends and remained together long after Murray had gone back to his native Scotland.

  Howley followed Mattie and trusted the man’s amazing instinct. The geologist used other guides in his travels but could find no one to be Mattie’s equal. He relied on him exclusively whenever it was possible to avail of the Indian’s services.

  The two men travelled and explored all along the snarl of coves and bays and narrow inlets of the Connaigre peninsula on Newfoundland’s rugged south coast. Mattie led the intrepid geologist around Hermitage Bay to Gaultois Island, where the Mi’kmaq people had found refuge from the French and English wars hundreds of years before.

  At every night’s campfire, James Howley did his best to teach Mattie Mitchell the mysteries of science. In turn, Mattie told Howley the ways of his people handed down to him from a thousand such night fires. And Howley always listened.

  With Mattie, Howley paddled in wonderment the length of the huge glacial fjord of Bay d’Espoir. When they arrived at its farthest reach into insular Newfoundland, the two stayed for a time at the Mi’kmaq village of Miawpukek, or Conne River, where Howley updated his maps.

  They were sitting by their campfire just above a gravelly beach on their last night in the hamlet. The sea was calm here in this deep bay. The water looked like a calm, black pond and not at all like the tormented waters of the Atlantic.

  Howley was entering detailed accounts of his travels into his ledger. He frequently wetted the black tip of his pencil between his lips before each entry. Pausing in his work, he looked across the bright fire at Mattie and asked him how it was that he could keep everything so precise in his mind.

  “I don’t mean the bays themselves. Anyone can remember big items. What I mean is your keen knowledge of every rock and shoal
and hidden reef on salt water or fresh water, for not only this coast, but for every coast we have travelled.”

  “Don’t know why,” said Mattie. “Ever’ place I bin stay in my min’ ver’ easy.”

  Howley bent over his precious book again and turned it to get better light on the page. “You know, Matthieu, there was an English hydrographer by the name of Captain James Cook who mapped this coast hundreds of years ago. I wonder if he too had a Mi’kmaq man to guide his ship around this coast of so many treacherous bays.”

  Mattie was looking at the black runnels of quiet night water as they ran along the edge of the beach and didn’t answer for a moment. Then he asked in his quiet way, “’E da same captain man who cut ears from ’is sailors wit’ long knife?”

  Howley dropped his pencil in astonishment at the question. He dragged the long fingers of one hand through his scraggly beard and drew the other hand over his balding white head. It was a move Mattie recognized as one Howley made whenever he was excited or upset.

  Cook was the greatest of all explorers. He was the best of navigators, and cartographer extraordinaire. He had sailed the world over claiming many firsts for a European. He was stabbed to death in the Hawaiian Islands by a Hawaiian chieftain while trying to take their king hostage.

  One of Cook’s well-known punishments for disobedience— something he would not abide—was to order one of the ears to be cut from the offending crew member. Despite his sadistic method of maiming as a form of punishment, Howley was one of Cook’s greatest admirers.