DURING THE COURSE OF MY RESEARCH to write what I soon discovered to be the incredible story of Mattie Mitchell, I read extensively from many works written by the early European explorers. Many of them recorded their investigations in great detail. Some of them were great authors and wrote with a wonderful flowing hand.
Considering the attention they paid to some details, the omissions I found in many of their writings bewildered me.
Leaving the port of St. John’s and usually travelling at government expense, they always named the ship they sailed on, its captain, and sometimes even some of the crew members. After arriving at one of the major outports like Twillingate, for example, they would record the schooner names and their skippers who took them farther into the bays.
Often they required smaller vessels to take them to the mouths of rivers or deeper into the dangerous bays as needed. And again, they almost always named the men who carried them forth. But, when taken by the Mi’kmaq Indians up the unknown rivers and deep into the mysterious wilderness beyond the white man’s frontier, they simply referred to them as their “Micmac Indians” or “my native guide” or “my Indian.” The Mi’kmaq guides, who led them to shorelines that few white men knew about, remained nameless.
There are, of course, a few pleasant exceptions, such as James Howley and Alexander Murray, who were undoubtedly Newfoundland’s greatest non-Indian explorers. I acknowledge, as well, Hugh Cole for his vivid, daily accounts of the 400-mile-long reindeer trek. To these men I give full credit.
Throughout my research I found that the contributions made by the Mi’kmaq people to the exploration of insular Newfoundland are exemplary. They were called upon extensively as guides. And by far the one who was requested most frequently was Mattie Mitchell.
In 1891 he played a major role in leading the Reid surveyors to the right areas to allow access for the first Newfoundland railway. He guided them along the west coast as well as much of the central part of the route.
Mattie led the first mapping expedition of the Northern Peninsula, the first major geological survey of practically all of central and western Newfoundland.
He guided European explorers through the hidden valleys and over the top of the Annieopsquotch Mountains, which admirably lives up to its name in the Mi’kmaq language, meaning “Terrible Rocks.”
It should also be noted that Mattie took his son Lawrence with him on many of his excursions. The American sportsman-clergyman Worcester recorded fourteen-year-old Lawrence with his father on at least two occasions. In 1904 the A. N. D. Company hired Mattie and Lawrence to find timber and other resources, however, Lawrence is not recorded as part of the group that discovered the Buchans ore body in 1905.
Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, born just outside of Dublin, Ireland, would have no other guide than Mattie Mitchell. Harmsworth especially loved fly fishing for Atlantic salmon. He was a newspaper publishing magnate in England, who added the pulp and paper mill in Grand Falls to his list of assets in 1905. In that same year he was added to the British peerage as Baron Northcliffe.
Mattie Mitchell was also recognized by the British royalty. After guiding members of the royal family on a very successful hunting and fishing expedition, he was verbally given the sole rights to hunt and fish the King George IV Lake area in central Newfoundland forever. Although Mattie never exercised this right, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if that royal “decree” had been put in writing.
There is another, much more serious event recorded in the private memoirs of Marie Sparkes. It involves Mattie’s discovery of the ore body on Sandy River. She records that Mattie was receiving a guiding fee of $18 per month at the time. The barrel of flour he received as a bonus, valued in 1905 at $2.50, has been universally scoffed at. It has also been considered by others as fair. After all, Mattie was in the company’s employ, for which he was getting paid. When he was asked what he would like for his discovery, Mattie promptly said, “A barrel of flour fer me family’s winter bread.”
But Marie has carefully recorded a much more sinister account.
A. N. D. Company officials came to her grandfather’s door while he was away from home for an extended period. The officials wanted a paper signed and, in the absence of Mattie Mitchell, obtained a signature from a visiting relative of the man. The relative of Mattie didn’t have a chance—or was probably unable—to read the document that he signed. Sadly, the family have not been able to find any evidence of such a document. It was the belief of Marie Sparkes that it would prove little more than the signed agreement of the Mitchell family to forgo forever any benefits from their grandfather’s historic find.
Elwood Worcester, the American sportsman who came to Newfoundland to experience caribou and black bear hunting, as well as salmon and trout fishing unequalled anywhere, spent many years on the island with Mattie Mitchell. The man kept coming back for more than the hunting and the fishing. He came for the experience of living in a wilderness with a man who, when he walked away from the confines of the smallest of habitations, was truly a part of the natural whole. Worcester recorded and left behind a detailed description of his time spent with Mattie Mitchell. I acknowledge his contribution to my effort.
I have gathered much of the information in this book from the handwritten lines of a remarkable woman, Marie Mitchell Sparkes. After my second reading, I sensed between the fluid lines of her work a hidden personal yearning to have her grandfather’s life known. Hers was a quiet voice that hoped to be heard, and her steadfast resolve was quieted only by her death, which came far too soon.
Within the pages of Marie’s beautifully written work I found a woman with a desperate need to have her history revealed. I also witnessed the early days of a child whose history was cruelly denied. Along Mattie Mitchell’s “paths to pages” I have felt the burning need in Marie Sparkes to shout her ancestry.
I have merely whispered it.
There is within me a great fear that I have failed, after reading the personal feelings of a woman who clearly longed for the exploits of her grandfather to be heard by everyone.
Marie’s dedication to making her remarkable ancestry known has thankfully been handed down to another equally enthusiastic advocate of the Mi’kmaq culture. To her son, Brian Sparkes, I am forever grateful. Brian entrusted to me—which I reluctantly accepted—a satchel filled with rare photos, memorabilia, and documents written by his mother, Marie, about Mattie Mitchell. Until then, no one outside of their immediate family had seen them.
Like his mother, Brian never met Mattie Mitchell. Brian grew up in an entirely different era than did his great-grandfather, and even a different one than his mother. However, their Mi’kmaq ancestry has finally been accepted.
It has been a slow road.
In 1998, the government of Newfoundland and Labrador recognized Mattie Mitchell’s contribution to the growth and prosperity of the province by opening the Mattie Mitchell Prospectors Resource Room, under the Department of Natural Resources. The facility is located in the department’s Geological Survey on Elizabeth Avenue, St. John’s. Its mission statement on the provincial government’s website says it “is designed to support prospectors by providing them with mentoring, technical support, and promotional assistance, thereby assisting in the creation of wealth and jobs through sustainable mineral development.”
In 2001, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada recognized Mattie Mitchell as a person of national historic significance. A renowned Mi’kmaq hunter, guide, and prospector, Mattie Mitchell contributed to the exploration and mapping of the Northern Peninsula, and to the development of the new Newfoundland economy and mining of the twentieth century.
In 2005, a plaque in Mattie Mitchell’s honour was placed at the Deer Arm site on the main highway within Gros Morne National Park.