Here Richard Hakluyt fell into a coughing fit, which evidently had its intended consequence, because immediately afterward Henry Hudson apologized to Yale Templeton’s mother for having distressed her and acknowledged that, on reflection, not only must he have been mistaken in his identification of the painting but in fact he had never actually been to Spain. Then he added, “I do enjoy madrigals, however.” And he produced a lute that he had brought with him at Richard Hakluyt’s insistence.
Considering the number of centuries that had passed since he had made his living as a wandering minstrel, he performed quite competently. His selections were well chosen to appeal to Yale Templeton’s mother. He began with “My Bonny Lass She Smileth” and “April Is My Mistris Face” by Morley, offered a selection of representative works by Ravenscroft and Byrd, then finished with John Hilton’s “Fair Oriana, Beauty’s Queen.” It seemed to Yale Templeton’s mother that she had never received a more pleasing tribute. Whatever doubts she initially may have felt about Henry Hudson wafted away on the cadences of his lilting melodies.
Later, as they chatted over hot spiced wine, he offered some preliminary thoughts on the expedition. “Since we are interested in speed, my recommendation is that I take a single ship. There will be time enough to send for more men later, after I have freed Y. from the clutches of the Savage woman.” A visit to the docks in London, however, had convinced him that the kind of vessel he required was not currently available. He would have no choice but to build his own. “Alas, I seem to have misplaced the blueprints for the Discovery. However, I believe I can get my hands on the plans for my earlier ship, the Half Moon. I will set to work on construction presently. In many ways the Half Moon would be a preferable choice. It is somewhat smaller and will require no more than eighteen men to operate, even fewer if I reduce the scale of the ship, as I may well do, to save time.”
“Spare no expense,” said Yale Templeton’s mother. “Be assured that you have the full financial resources of the Crown behind you.”
“Although, of course, ‘twoulde be best not to make that facte publick,” cautioned Richard Hakluyt, “as we have no wish to arouse the suspicions of the Spaniardes and Portingales.” To which they all agreed.
A most curious band they made, the two men and one woman who met in the little cottage in Saffron Walden. I mean, think about it for a moment. In Yale Templeton’s mother we have an elderly dowager who believes that she is Queen Elizabeth I. In Sebastian Higgs, we have a computer systems analyst from Bournemouth who believes he was Henry Hudson in a previous life. And in Richard Hakluyt the younger, we have … well, for all I know, he really is Richard Hakluyt the younger, author of The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation made by sea or over land to the most remote and farthest distant quarters of the earth, at any time within the compass of these 1500 yeares, who had endured “restlesse nights,” “painefull dayes,” “heat,” “cold,” and so on for “the honour and benefit of this Common weale wherein I live and breathe.”
And the three of them have come together for what purpose? To rescue our—how shall I call Yale Templeton? Hero? No, that implies a nobility that would seem, at least on the evidence so far, conspicuously at odds with his character. Protagonist, then? But even that carries a suggestion of engagement hardly suitable for someone more acted upon than acting. Let us just say, they have come together to save the rather nondescript person who, without at all intending to, set our plot (such as it is) in motion. Not that they are likely to come up with the most practical of plans for effecting his rescue. Still, their intentions are admirable enough. And there are moments in life when no doubt it is advisable to trust your fate to individuals unconstrained by conventional attitudes regarding the limits of the possible.
XL
The corridors at the storage facility where the CIA houses its classified documents are dimly lit, with doorways hidden in shadows. At least that was the explanation the three security guards gave as to how a person or persons unknown had been able to overpower them. Why they were naked and handcuffed to each other when the cleaning staff found them remains a mystery.
A team of agents was sent in to determine which materials had been targeted in the breakin. They began with the records on al-Qaeda and other anti-American terrorist organizations. They then moved to the files for Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan. The files for China, Russia, Pakistan, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Chile, Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt. The files for the former Soviet Union as well as its satellites in Eastern Europe and its client states in Asia and Africa. The files from the Vietnam War, from the undeclared war in Cambodia, from the Korean War. And—in the room reserved for records from the prehistory of the CIA—the files from World War II, from World War I, from the Spanish-American War. But they found nothing indicating that the security of the nation had been compromised. Not a single document was missing; not a single document was out of place. And according to the sophisticated forensic tests used by the Agency, no records had been photographed. It appears, reported the Director of the CIA to the President, still at his ranch, that the breakin was nothing more than an elaborate practical joke.
But then, no one had thought to examine the files on Quebec.
XLI
In table manners the moose shows little of the gentility of most of the deer. He of necessity straddles like a giraffe to reach moss or other browse which is close to the ground, and often rears on his hind legs to reach attractive morsels which cannot otherwise be nibbled from the limbs of trees. He frequently “rides down” saplings by walking over them, bringing the tender twigs within easy reach.
SAMUEL MERRILL, THE MOOSE BOOK
Surprisingly little has been written about the political opinions of moose, and about the views of the Great White Moose on the pressing issues of the day, we know absolutely nothing. That would have to be considered a shame, because during the years when he was trekking back and forth across the distant reaches of Northern Ontario, the government of the province was in the hands of a party determined to overturn the social contract that had existed for half a century.
The party in question had at one time been the dominant force in provincial politics, but after languishing in opposition for years had chosen a new leader dedicated to returning what he called “horse sense” to government. A bowling instructor—“bowling professional” was the term he himself preferred—born and raised in a northern town not far from the Ojibwa settlement where the Great White Moose had spent the early years of his life, he believed that everything you needed to know about how to run the province could be learned over a beer with friends in the local bowling alley. And the more beers the better.
The most important lesson he had learned was that all his problems—and he had many—as well as all the problems of his friends—and they had many, too—were the result of nefarious actions by the government. And so, prompted by the local bowling association, he entered provincial politics, winning rather handily in his first campaign for office. In the years ahead, as the fortunes of the party declined, his public profile rose. As a result, by the time he took over the leadership, he was largely able to shape the party platform according to his own beliefs. During the next election, handbills with a picture of the new leader flashing a combative smile were plastered everywhere. Running across the top of the handbill was the new party slogan in bold print: “THE BUSINESS OF THE GOVERNMENT IS TO GO OUT OF BUSINESS.” One of the handbills somehow became stuck to the antlers of the Great White Moose while he was skirting the shores of Lake Nipissing, remaining with him until moulting season the following spring.
In the election, the party and its bowling instructor leader were swept to power, taking 40 percent of the vote, which, due to the logic of Canadian democracy, translated into 75 percent of the seats. “A clear mandate for change,” rejoiced the new premier, drawing on the fine understanding of democratic government, not to mention sta
tistics, he had honed in the brief year he had spent as a high school teacher.
The throne speech outlined the full measure of revolutionary change he had in mind for the province:
To quote Winston Churchill: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.” Mindful of that fundamental truth, your new government promises to centralize power in the hands of unelected officials answerable only to the premier.
To ensure that the citizens of Ontario receive the quality of public services that they truly deserve, your new government promises to remove the delivery of those services from the hands of dedicated civil servants who have devoted their lives to promoting the public good and turn it over, through untendered bids, to private sector firms whose principal obligation is to secure short-term profits for their CEOs, if not, perhaps, their shareholders.
Because the vast majority of people in the province live in urban centres in the South, we will implement forms of municipal government suitable for small towns in the North. To allow us to fulfill our promise to balance the provincial budget, we will download a vast range of expensive services onto the municipalities, while denying them access to the additional tax revenues they will need to provide those services adequately.
The primary requirement of any government is to ensure fiscal responsibility. It is well established that in Ontario the greatest obstacle to a balanced budget is the vast sums of money in the hands of the poor. The homeless, in particular, are inexplicably privileged. They have no overhead (so to speak), provide no work for Portuguese cleaning ladies, and rarely employ illegal immigrant women from the Philippines as nannies, yet for some reason they continue to receive public assistance. It will be the intention of your new government to shift the resources of the province to the deserving rich, who as a result will no longer be compelled to tie up their inheritances in tax havens off shore.
In keeping with our campaign pledge to restore dignity to labour, your new government promises to eliminate the minimum wage and drastically expand the number of workers denied the right to strike.
Perhaps the greatest challenge facing any government today is to provide an education that will prepare children to compete in the global economy of the twenty-first century (or at least serve as a pliant, cheap labour force for multinational corporations based in the United States). To that end your new government makes the following promises: to appoint a high school dropout as Minister of Education; to substantially reduce the pay of school board members, while cutting back on the financial resources available for them to perform their duties; to increase the number of courses each instructor will be required to teach, while slashing the time allotted for classroom preparation; to cut programs for students with learning disabilities or for whom English is a second language; and to eliminate one year of high school.
Universal health care is regarded by Canadians as a sacred trust. Accordingly your new government will negotiate a fee schedule with doctors that will require a significant paring down of the services covered by OHIP along with massive cutbacks in the number of nurses hospitals can afford to hire. This will necessitate our licensing private facilities to attend to the medical needs of the deserving rich, allowing Ontario to produce a health care system every bit as efficient as the one currently operating in the United States, where over 40 million people find themselves without health insurance and per capita medical costs are almost 50 percent higher than in Canada.
Implementation of the agenda outlined in the throne speech created labour discord, seriously undermined the quality of health care in the province, produced chaos in the schools, and substantially increased homelessness while significantly enriching the wealthiest 2 percent of the population. In the minds of the voters who had elevated the bowling instructor to power, there could hardly be clearer evidence that, unlike any other politician in recent (or distant) memory, here was a man prepared to carry out his promises without compromise or indeed concern for (not to mention awareness of) their consequences. It came as no surprise to political commentators when, four years later, these same voters used their considerable electoral voice to return him to office.
Now, however, he faced a dilemma. Having fulfilled all the commitments he had made in his first throne speech, he was at a loss about what to do during his second term. Here, however, he came up with a solution that won over even his most severe detractors. He proposed to spend the better part of the year in California. This proved so satisfactory that he decided to remain indefinitely outside Canada while giving up the office of premier (after having first done the paperwork necessary to ensure that Ontario taxpayers would cover all his expenses).
Once he announced his intention to resign, party officials called a convention to select a new leader. Candidates included the most prominent members of his cabinet: the Minister for the Deserving Rich, the Minister for People Even More Deserving than the Deserving Rich Because They Have Even More Money, the Minister for Neglecting the Mentally Ill, and the Minister for Contradicting Himself on Energy Policy. In the end, however, the party turned to the Minister for Selling His Soul to Bay Street on the grounds that, of all the candidates, he alone had the capacity to foster the illusion that the government had a deep sense of compassion for all residents of the province, poor as well as rich.
Unfortunately, the new premier became embroiled in controversy almost from the moment he took office. He was severely taken to task for his decision to rent out the legislature to a car parts manufacturer who was looking for a more dignified setting than his factory to hold the annual shareholders’ meeting. (I was going to say that he made arrangements to bring down the provincial budget in a car parts factory, but parody, to be effective, must at least carry the hint of credibility.)
But the major problem he confronted came after a Supreme Court ruling forced the legislature to address the question of same-sex marriage. The former premier, like all beer-drinking bowlers from the North, held old-fashioned views on matrimony. He was deeply committed to family values, devoted not only to his own wife, but to the wives of several of his fellow citizens as well. His successor, however, was less dogmatic on social issues. And so he directed the Minister for the Deserving Rich Who, Through No Fault of Their Own, Happen to Be Gay, to come up with legislation that would acknowledge the emerging willingness among certain privileged elements of society to tolerate homosexual relationships while showing respect for those no less worthy individuals adhering to traditional standards of morality. The resulting statute was carefully designed to chart a middle course. It gave government sanction to same-sex marriages, but only for heterosexuals. This compromise was applauded by the Globe and Mail as “a very Canadian solution to a divisive issue.” Indeed, it proved so successful that Parliament later drafted Federal legislation for same-sex marriages modelled on the Ontario law.
Now, I know what you are wondering. What did the Great White Moose think about all these remarkable developments? Having no disposable income to speak of, no children to educate, being relatively healthy, and spending his life as a transient in the wilderness, he was little affected by many of the initiatives introduced by the government. As for sexual relations, while I feel confident in saying that the majority of moose believe that the state has no place in the wallows of the nation, since the Great White Moose had been neutered at birth, we can by no means take it for granted that he held to mainstream (moose) views.
There was, however, one area of public policy that had a direct and immediate impact on his life. I am speaking, of course, of the environment. “Being born and raised in the North,” said the bowling instructor upon becoming premier, “nothing is more important to me than preserving the rich natural heritage entrusted to us by our ancestors.” With that in mind, as his first official act, he granted fifty square kilometres of old growth forest to a developer. “The white pine is of the very highest quality, exceptionally well suited for the construction of bowli
ng lanes,” the premier remarked proudly when making the announcement. Critics accused him of using his office improperly to benefit a friend. But he replied testily that the only connection he had with the developer was that they had grown up together, gone to the same school, and were members of the same private clubs. “Oh yes, and he was best man at my wedding. But other than that I hardly know the fellow.” His supporters always loved it when he replied testily to his critics.
Not that there is any reason to believe that the Great White Moose cared much one way or the other about bowling. But it was distressing to him when, after abandoning the comfort and quiet of Elk Lake and starting off in the general direction of North Bay, he came to a stretch of land that he remembered as a pine forest only to find nothing but tree stumps, a bulldozer, and some men in hard hats. He retreated hastily, heading north and west. Eventually he arrived at the Temagami district, over 10,000 square kilometres containing fully one-third of North America’s red and white pines. It is also home to a number of important endangered species, including the aurora trout, golden eagle, and eastern cougar. Polling indicates that fully 96 percent of residents of Ontario support preserving old growth forest. And so the premier created the Ministry to Encourage Illegal Clear-Cutting to see that the interests of the remaining 4 percent of the population—deserving rich loggers and developers according to the Minister for Deserving Rich Loggers and Developers—were protected.
When the lumber crews moved into Temagami, so did the protesters. They staged sit-ins at the headquarters of the logging companies and set up roadblocks on the highway running through the forest. On one of his excursions into the Temagami woods some years earlier, the Great White Moose had come upon a camp set up by the protesters. As fortune would have it, they were off in town for the evening—their monthly beer and bowling fest—and he was able to enjoy a box of granola bars before moving on. The protesters also engaged in a massive letter-writing campaign to individuals they hoped would be sympathetic to their cause. Yale Templeton’s name apparently found its way onto their mailing list, because one day he received a pamphlet containing the stunning revelation that the logging plan called for “10,042 hectares of clear-cuts—an area larger than 17,000 football fields.” He was surprised to learn that there was so much demand for football fields in a section of the province that his travels told him was largely unpopulated. But then the peculiar reality of life in the North never failed to amaze him. The pamphlet also pointed out that the loss of old growth forest could have disastrous long-term consequences for wildlife, which prompted him to send the environmental group a ten-dollar donation. “On behalf of the Great White Moose,” he told Bobbi Jo Jackson.
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