Mattie Mitchell

by Gary Collins

  (Mitchell and Greening left camp on the 29th ulto and did not reach Sop’s Arm until the 31st. We reckoned the journey to be about 10 miles. It was not less than 30. These good fellows existed on one meal and were without shelter being compelled to leave the hills and take to the open brook. After travelling 15 miles, had to abandon the sleigh, as the dogs were too weak to haul. They were certainly “up against it,” and it is difficult to imagine how they got through. They expected to find a mill at Sop’s Arm; but, after searching until dark, they returned to a small salmon hut they had passed earlier in the evening. When they had made a fire, they “went to a cupboard,” found an old tin can, which contained a little grease etc. Greening says it was awfully sweet. Sop’s Arm was sighted in the morning about five miles from the huts. The few liviers there scarcely had sufficient food to meet their own needs. The nearest store was situated on the other side of White Bay and the ice had broken up during the week previous. This meant another spoke out of their wheel, as they thought of us in camp without food. The boys, who were now played out, sought for volunteers to make the trip across the bay, a distance of 10 miles. There was a great deal of slob ice in the bay, which made the trip a risky one; but the Sop’s Arm men were ready in the morning. Whilst crossing, the wind changed, drove the slob in, and the boat became jammed. The going and coming took 52 hours, the men having to walk several miles on each side of the bay. Mitchell had collected some provisions and started off for camp before the men returned from White Bay. Greening and the five men were able to follow next day. Reference to my diary as to the state of the weather, will account for their slow progress. On Saturday and part of Friday travelling was impossible. The men carried no blankets with them—only packs and axes. Each pack weighing from 45-50 lbs.)

  CHAPTER 15

  BACK WITH THE EXPEDITION ONCE MORE, Mattie was relieved to find them in good spirits. Maretta, the deaf and mute woman, ran to greet him, stopped just short of touching him, and smiled her welcome. The woman used a sign language that Mattie always seemed to understand, and Maretta understood him.

  The two men who had accompanied Mattie from White Bay with the heavy load of provisions told Cole about their ordeal. No “white man” could have ever done what Mattie had, they said. The storm that had made them go astray had come on so suddenly they were defenceless against it. Caught out on an open barren with severe drifting and a biting wind, Mattie had led them downwind to shelter. There were times, the men told Cole, when they could barely make out the Indian’s tall form through the swirling snow.

  What amazed the two men even more was, even when the storm had cleared and Mattie realized he was well away from where he wanted to be, he did not backtrack. He simply climbed a rise, looked out over the hills for a minute, came back down, and calmly walked in a different direction toward the campsite. They believed the man had not in fact gone astray, but had just been delayed because of the storm.

  Their energy restored by the food, their spirit by the return of Mattie Mitchell, whom they all trusted to get them through, the band of nomads considered which way they would head from here. The men from White Bay returned to the coast. Cole, in consultation with his guide, had originally planned on trekking south to Birchy Narrows at the confluence of Sandy Lake and Birchy Lake, where they hoped to cross either of the two huge lakes on the ice and then on to Kitty’s Brook.

  Following the general course of Kitty’s Brook would take them up over the barren lands of the Topsails and east across Sandy River—where Mattie had discovered the massive sulphide deposit in 1905—and then on to Millertown at the head of Red Indian Lake.

  However, Mattie advised against this route. He pointed out that due to the mild yet high winds, the ice at the narrow ends of both lakes would almost certainly be broken up, if it wasn’t already. The narrows between the two huge lakes always presented a danger while crossing because of the currents. Although the reindeer could easily swim across the lake anywhere, if the ice was unsafe the group of men and women would have to build rafts for themselves and their gear. Without the proper tools, this would be time-consuming.

  The only other alternative, then, was to walk the entire length of the west side of Sandy Lake to the biggest lake of them all, Grand Lake. From there they would head west to the railway at Deer Lake. Mattie warned Hugh Cole that this route involved many river crossings that would be dangerous at this time of year. Cole agreed with Mattie’s logic. He also had some concern about their limited food supply. Mattie mentioned quietly that there would be no communities to turn to for grub along this route. Again Cole agreed with Mattie’s common sense. They would take an alternate route.

  On April 7 the adventurers turned their backs on White Bay. With Mattie leading them on broken snowshoes, they wound their way up through the Long Range Mountains again and headed for Parson’s Pond on the west side of the Great Northern Peninsula.

  Mattie stopped to repair his snowshoes. The lashings were all but worn through in both shoes and the left shoe had a crack running diagonally along it for several inches. He used the last of his own caribou leather strips to tie a splint along the damaged shoe, as well as to repair the criss-crossed leather fillings. Cole and the others also took the time to repair their own snowshoes. All but the women, who only got out of the sleds on sharp inclines or dangerous places, had worn snowshoes daily and all were badly worn. The heavy snow still made travel impossible without the snowshoes. The day was late and Cole ordered everyone to see about their individual repairs. Mattie put his shoes back on and told Cole he would check out the way ahead. He left the others to set up a hasty camp.

  This was an area Mattie knew well. He had travelled it many times, usually alone. He walked along the side of a steep rock formation that appeared ghost-like through the falling snow, hoping to find a way through for his group, and he smiled at the memory of this place.

  HE HAD LED H. C. THOMPSON up this way from Bonne Bay in 1904. They had started their journey on a pleasant, warm summer day. Thompson wrote in his journal:

  We left Bonne Bay on August 29, and ascended to the high plateau that lies to the north of the bay by a landslide, or “scrape” to use the local expression, of over 1000 feet in height, of exceedingly slippery blue slate, on which it was difficult to obtain a foothold.

  Thompson marvelled at “his Indian’s” astounding sense of direction and his knowledge of the country that was nothing short of “intimate.” The two men traversed the Northern Peninsula for the next two autumn months.

  They lived largely off the land. It was the “Indian summer” time. And every cool night, Thompson and Mattie sat by their fire, where Thompson compiled the first maps ever drafted of this majestic land. The geologist listened to Mitchell speak, only when asked, of the country they were walking through. He recorded bearings meticulously with his cherished compass, until, in this very place where Mattie now stood, with the cold night upon him, Thompson’s compass had failed him! And he entered this, by the light of the cheery fire, into his journal:

  On September 4 we altered our course for Parson’s Pond, not having to go on to the Sop’s Arm Steady as we intended. The morning was misty, we hardly see twenty yards ahead of us, and the walking was difficult, the toil of forcing our way through the thick undergrowth being very great. We rose gradually to a broad, fairly even barren, with here and there a curious saddle-backed outcrop of granite generally from about 100-200 feet in length and 10 feet in width at the base, terminating at the top of a sharp ridge—a curious formation for which we were unable to account. There must evidently be much iron about, for the compass swung a good deal.

  Mattie knew this place could be problematic for them, and not for the same reason that had confounded Thompson. Mattie couldn’t use, nor did he need, a compass to get to Parson’s Pond. Early on, just a few days into this journey, he had learned something about the reindeer that not even the Laplanders knew. The deer were afraid of heights.

  The very first time they had followed Mattie to th
e edge of a steep incline, they had shied away. When he led them to approach it again, they had trembled in fright. Even when he took them down through precipitous cliffs, as had sometimes been necessary along their often treacherous route, the animals would roll their eyes up at the enclosing grey walls and remain skittish until they had passed through.

  Mattie realized he would never get the animals down out of the high mountains here. Another way would have to be found down out of the hills to Parson’s Pond. Thompson’s journal:

  On September 4 we took our way over a rocky, moss covered barren, fairly dry, and with comparatively little bog, and about mid-day we came to the end of the forge which lies at the back of the upper Parson’s Pond. It is a deep-cleft ravine with cliffs nearly 2000 feet in height, rising almost sheer, and approaching to within a few hundred yards of each other. Between them winds a long sinuous lake which entirely fills up the gorge, and that the only way through it would be by making a raft. Beyond the lake we could see a low strip of green marshland, and beyond that the Azure sea. The atmosphere was of that extra-ordinary clearness which one so often finds in mountains after rain. The hills were cleft by ravines at short intervals, forming flat-topped barrens with abrupt sides, giving them, from the sea, the appearance of gigantic barns; that doubtless, as Archbishop Howley pointed out to me, being the origin of the French name “La Grange” of this mountain chain, of which the “Long Range” is probably a corruption. The sides of the gorge were too steep to be attempted with our heavy loads, and the timber, seen through our glasses, looked too small to make a raft with of sufficient strength to risk ourselves upon it on the lake, as the wind blows like a hurricane through these funnel shaped openings between the hills. There was nothing for it but to hark back along the crest of the Long Range to try and find an easier route.

  And so Mattie “harked” his way back from the valley with the strange, iron-bearing rock formation. And with the “dark on his shoulder” and the snow finally stopping, he smelled the woodsmoke first and next the deer odour, and saw, through the trees, the flicker of a welcome fire.

  Mattie had guided H. C. Thompson over a meandering route from Bonne Bay north as far as Flower’s Cove. Their laborious hike had taken them out to the mouth of Sandy Bay River and along the “landwash” to Portland Creek. Then they went inland again as far as the big lake dotted with islands, which James Howley, the Newfoundland geologist, had named in Mitchell’s honour in the late 1880s.

  They had continued on their way mapping in the shortening days, inland from Daniel’s Harbour, where Mattie built another raft to cross a long lake, with only four spikes that he forever kept in his pack to use again and again. He told Thompson that with these four rusty spikes he could “cross dis islan’ all over.”

  And that night they slept beneath a blue mountain that Mattie called Naskwotchu. They walked back to the coast again to Port Saunders and along to Port au Choix, where they were graciously given passage across St. John Bay by a Captain Laurent in his own schooner, as far as Bartletts Harbour.

  Mattie led Thompson inland again over the harsh terrain until they could see the blue waters of Hare Bay and the distant Atlantic on the northern end of the peninsula. West again to Flower’s Cove, where the peninsula reached across the narrowing Gulf of St. Lawrence in a slight bulge for the coast of Labrador just a few miles away. Their journey just about done, they embarked aboard a steamer and sailed south to Bonne Bay.

  Thompson carried in a waterproof bag all of the preliminary drawings, mappings, and intricate details of the land he had made by the yellow light of every night campfire. He had detailed the very first maps and sketched, complete with accurate compass bearings, this truly great Northern Peninsula. His work would be used extensively by explorers and adventurers of this land for generations after he and his intrepid guide had gone from the land.

  From Bonne Bay, Mattie walked with Thompson to the railhead at Deer Lake on October 15, 1904, where the two men who had become friends bade farewell to one another. And Thompson said, after he had been complimented by his government employer, “The compass showed me direction, but Mattie Mitchell, sir, showed me the way.”

  FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS, MATTIE searched for a way to lead the reindeer down out of the mountains to the coast at Parson’s Pond. It was snowing again and the wind caused severe drifting. The going was difficult and very slow. They ran out of meat again. Cole ordered Mattie to take Greening with him and hunt for caribou.

  The two men were passing the herd of reindeer, which had wandered off again—the deer always returned on their own now—when Mattie saw one with a lighter colour. It was a caribou! He killed the animal with one shot to the head using his Martin Henry rifle.

  The closest reindeer twitched a bit at the sound of the shot, but the others merely turned their heads. The two men started to paunch the animal. When Mattie opened up its belly with his Bowie knife and the caribou’s warm blood ran out and steamed onto the snow, the reindeer bolted, their hoofs clicking as they ran.

  They hauled the entrails away from the hot carcass, cut the heart, liver, and kidneys away, cleaned the blood from the organs with snow, placed the viscera inside their packs, and fastened a rope around the head of the animal. With the two of them pulling eagerly, they returned to the campsite, with the caribou leaving a trail of blood growing ever fainter as they went. It had all taken less than an hour.

  Mattie skinned the caribou whole and Greening cut the tender meat for the waiting pots. Mattie cut thin, green strips from the hide. He told Cole they would not last as long as cured leather, but they could be used for their snowshoe repairs. After filling their bellies with the freshly cooked caribou meat and a steaming cup of “switchel” tea—tea without sugar—Cole sent Mattie and Greening out again to find a way through the mountains.

  To the traveller trying to find his way through treacherous wooded valleys, barren plateaus, and places where countless streams flow, a good vantage point is always a boon. A distant mountain, high ridge, or a distinctive lone hill, when viewed from one of these same landmarks, appears as if it could be easily followed. But when that same traveller comes down from the viewing point and stands beneath the smallest of trees before wending his way through a trackless wilderness, his landmarks have suddenly vanished and he is left with only his own sense of direction to guide him.

  Mattie Mitchell was known for his incredible sense of direction. When he went the wrong way—a rare event—he would somehow know in just a few minutes that he had gone wrong and would immediately correct his way. To add to his problem on this day was the wind, which here on the flat-topped mountains seldom stopped blowing. It was snowing again, too.

  He found a place where a man could get down a gorge by jumping on many tumbled boulders that had been dislodged by some long-ago erosion. The way also travelled beside a sheer drop-off, one the acrophobic reindeer would certainly not go near. And then, just as the light was leaving the land, he found a way to lead the deer down out of the mountains.

  Now the two men made their way back to camp, not using the broken way they had come, but walking over new snow toward the welcome campsite and rest.

  The snow had stopped some time during the night. The next morning dawned cold and clear. Twenty-two of the reindeer were missing and had not been seen since they had gotten the hot scent of blood from the slaughtered caribou. Cole had fed the dogs with some of the meat. They were running short of grub again.

  Cole directed Mattie to lead him down through the pass he had found, to the settlement of Parson’s Pond, where they would buy provisions and return with them to the herd. They made it after dark that evening as far as the abandoned oil wells by the saltwater pond itself, where they entered a deserted shack. They lit a fire in the small wood stove and slept soundly under a roof that did not flap in the wind.

  Parson’s Pond is a saltwater inlet that allows the North Atlantic waters inland almost to the foot of the mountains. Fresh water enters the pond from the streams on the hill
s nearby, mixing with the clear, salty ocean waters. In 1867, businessman John Silver was drilling for oil by the north shore of this brackish lake when he was stopped by the French government.

  The French still claimed rights to this land, claiming the Treaty of Utrecht as their authority. This treaty, signed by the French nation in the city of Utrecht in the far-off Netherlands in 1713, ceded to the English all of their claims of eastern Canada, along with most of the coastal part of the island of Newfoundland. However, the French retained their age-old fishing rights to part of the island, according to article thirteen of that treaty:

  That part of the said Island, which stretched from the place called Cape Bonavista to the northern point of the said Island, and from thence turning down by the western side, reaches as far as the place called Pointe Riche.

  It is worthy of noting that, in all of the negotiations that involved a land many times larger than both the French and English nations combined, the native peoples who inhabited the land were not mentioned. The English allowed the French fisherman exclusive rights to erect flakes for the purpose of drying the codfish and reluctantly agreed to temporary shelters limited to the fishing season. Silver’s oil drilling did not fall under the fishing agreement, and the French, knowing they would never reap any benefit from oil along “their” fishing shores, protested. Amazingly, well over a century after the signing, the Treaty of Utrecht put a stop to Silver’s enterprising venture.