MATTIE MITCHELL AND ELWOOD WORCESTER left Humber Arm at daybreak two days later. Standing at the wharf and waving a tearful farewell—not to the two men, but to the boat that he would never see again and that he still considered his—stood Frank. Only when the Danny Boy cleared the wharf head and turned her stern to the land did Worcester see a parted upstairs curtain where a nightgown-clad Millie watched the leaving schooner without waving.
They sailed out the long bay under a grey dawning sky. There was barely enough wind to gather the mainsail, but the two men were in no hurry. The schooner came out from under the mountain shadows as she slipped toward the sea, and soon the flat mountains released the yellow sun until full daylight was upon the land and the sea.
For Mattie Mitchell it was an awesome first. He loved the experience of standing on the deck of a free-sailing schooner. His canoe was secured to the slightly tilted deck of the schooner with its river-scarred bottom facing up. Many times over the years he had used a small makeshift sail while canoeing this very bay or crossing large inland lakes. Usually his jacket or a blanket served such a purpose. But here on the deck of a huge vessel, he marvelled at the feeling of gliding effortlessly along. However, as was his way, he did not volunteer his thoughts to Worcester.
His keen eye and quick mind followed Worcester’s every move as the man brought the vessel under full sail. The American patiently explained the workings as he did so. Long before they reached the open Gulf of St. Lawrence, Mattie understood enough to aid Worcester with the running of the boat.
It was when Worcester asked Mattie to try his hand at steering the boat that he learned more about the Indian and his people. This was how the American would find out much more about the man he would grow to love and respect for the rest of his life.
“How about taking the helm for a while, Mattie?” Worcester asked, indicating the wheel held firmly in his grip. Without the slightest hesitation, and not asking the American why he had called it a helm, Mattie Mitchell grasped the polished dowelled spokes and with a confident air stood before his first mast.
Standing away from the wheel and giving Mattie full control of the vessel, Worcester explained to him what Frank had warned him about. Long after Worcester had paid for the Danny Boy, an apologetic Frank had told Worcester his one complaint about the little schooner.
“She yaws a bit to port, she does. You must forever kep a strong ’an’ on the starburd spokes, else she’ll veer port, she will. I suspec’ ’tis a bit of want in her keel is causin’ it. I fergot to tell ’e about it before. Do ya want yer money back?”
Worcester smiled at the memory and told Mattie that Frank had told him the truth. The schooner did indeed “yaw a bit to port,” especially if the wheel was left unattended for a moment. If Frank had not mentioned it, Worcester simply would have considered it as part of the schooner’s handling. He found no other fault with his schooner.
Standing tall and proud at the wheel and with the open sea coming into view, Mattie wondered if he would get the seasickness he had heard so much about. He never did.
Worcester was delighted with his new guide. He immediately saw the intelligence of the man. The way he grasped the workings of a sailing vessel with little tutoring impressed him greatly. It was something many men found difficult to understand, even after spending months at sea. Yet the Indian became a capable hand before the first day was done.
Worcester also noticed how Mattie looked him full in the eyes when he was talking to him. It was as if the man was seeing into his very thoughts, giving him his full attention. It was the reason Mattie learned so quickly. Worcester would also come to know that any time Mattie paid no attention to him, it meant he wasn’t interested in the subject. At such times Mattie listened quietly but always looked away, his body language showing his lack of interest.
On this day, standing on the deck of the schooner that carried them out to the blue sea, a friendship began that would last the lifetimes of both men. It was the start of years of adventure that would take them along hundreds of shady woodland trails and through many secluded inland waterways. With a proud Mattie at the wheel, they scunned out the long bay, with the schooner’s forefoot disturbing the water along the shadowed edge of the high, tabletop mountains as they went.
They came up under the lee of Woods Island at the mouth of the arm with a bright sun beaming on the neat, colourful houses of the fisher people living there. Small dories filled the water around the island, most of them a rich vermilion, the single oarsmen paddling along. With friendly waves to the industrious boats as they passed, the schooner sailed on across the open mouths of the middle and then north arms of the Bay of Islands.
Worcester frequently consulted the schooner compass as they journeyed out the bay. Having no map of the area, he trusted to Mattie’s directions. When Mattie pointed the way they should take to cross the bay, Worcester pointed the bow of the Danny Boy in that direction. Looking into the wooden binnacle, he told Mattie they were sailing due north and 290 degrees toward the west.
Mattie watched the compass spin slowly as the schooner veered. Showing his trademark disinterest, he turned away. “I don’t know ’bout that stuff, Preacher. I know North Star. My people always follow drinking gourd. You find North Star, you find all stars. Din you find your way. It is nuff fer me.”
Worcester nodded thoughtfully at the wisdom of this statement and grinned at the moniker the Indian had attached to him. On the very first day of their meeting, Worcester had mentioned that he was an ordained minister of the Episcopalian faith. Mattie hadn’t heard that term before, and when Worcester tried to explain that he was like a priest, Mattie shook his head.
“You like no priest I see. No long dress like woman. You more like preacher man.”
And so it was that Mattie called Worcester “Preacher.” And after a few failed attempts at telling Mattie he could call him Elwood or Worcester, or even Reverend if he wanted to, he gave up and accepted his new name. For the rest of their time together Mattie would call him nothing else, and always the name was said with the respect the man had for the clergy. After a while he became known around the bay as Mattie’s preacher, and Worcester came to like the title.
They had put Woods Island behind them and were well across the mouth of the bay, which Worcester figured might be ten or so miles wide, when he saw something that amazed him. They were passing by one of the small fishing boats. The lone fisherman standing in the stern of the dory had a long sculling oar in his left hand. It passed between two vertical thole-pins in the centre of the craft and entered the water at a jaunty angle.
The fisherman held the other end of the oar in the crook of his arm and regularly twisted it in a circular motion that appeared to keep the bow of the boat into the light wind. The man standing straight and tall with the long oar reminded Worcester of a Venetian gondolier.
But it was another, more unusual action that fascinated the American. The fisherman was constantly bending to and fro from the waist up. In the same determined motion, with his right hand he kept pulling and releasing nothing. It was only when they sailed closer that they could see a line running out over the gunnel of the boat.
The American had never seen such a method of fishing before. The fisherman’s hand came to a sudden, jolting stop on its upward pull. In an instant the man drew the long oar across the thwarts of the boat, grasped the line with both hands, and began pulling in a fluid, vigorous hand-over-hand motion. In the space of just a couple of minutes he yanked a shiny white codfish over the side, flicked a large hook from its mouth, threw the hook over the side again, and, as the line ran back down into the sea, grabbed the sculling oar and spun the boat—which had turned broadside—into the gentle wind once more. It was all done with the speed and dexterity of a man who excelled at his trade. The fisherman looked toward the passing schooner, waved his friendly right hand on the upstroke, and quickly bent over again to pull another glistening fish out of the water.
Worcester asked Mattie if the fish were so plentiful that they could be caught just anywhere.
“No. Only on good grounds feesh caught. Dat man good fisherman. Always wave to me. He know Danny B’y. He know grounds ver’ well, too.”
Worcester asked if “grounds” were the same as banks, to which Mattie replied he was pretty sure that they were.
“But how does he know where these underwater grounds are?” asked Worcester. “Does he use a chart and compass?”
“No compass. ’E use landmarks for feesh grounds. I show you ver’ soon,” answered the ever-patient Mattie, who was carefully studying the distant land as he spoke.
Soon, at Mattie’s request they dropped the sails. The schooner slowed and finally lost its headway. Mattie produced his own hook and line like the one they had seen the fisherman using. They found another one aboard the schooner. The big hooks were embedded into the heads of a grey moulded lead fish close to six inches in length. A heavy line was tied to its tail. Mattie scraped the sides of the fish with his knife until the lure shone like new.
Unwinding the line from its wooden reel, he threw the jigger over the side and watched it glint and finally disappear into the green depths. When the line went slack in his hands, indicating it had reached bottom, Mattie hurriedly pulled it back several feet. In less than a minute a large cod lay flopping for life on the deck of the drifting schooner. Mattie threw the jigger back over the side. As it sang over the broad bulwark, he grabbed the thrashing fish, cut its narrow, white throat, grasped the bottomed-out line, and reset it as before.
Worcester watched it all in stunned silence. Under Mattie’s watchful eye he soon had his own line over the side. After a few jigs he pulled out of the water a struggling fish of his own.
“You cut feesh throat, maybe. Make better taste wit’ blood gone,” Mattie advised.
Worcester took the knife and, after finally getting a grip on the slippery, writhing fish, began to cut its throat.
“You don’t cut to kill. You cut to bleed. Feesh ’eart keep pumping till all blood leave. Ver’ much better taste. You see soon,” Mattie said in his usual advisory tone of voice. Worcester understood the reasoning and did as he was told.
While they fished, Worcester asked Mattie to explain to him how they had found the fishing shoals by using landmarks. Mattie illustrated a simple yet clever method of using points of land aligned with another point—or a mountain, or a sky-lining tree, or someone’s white house—as marks to find good fishing spots below the sea.
They soon had several fish aboard and promptly cut the throat of each one. A pool of blood stained the schooner’s otherwise clean deck by the time they had finished. Mattie looked toward the land at his two sets of landmarks.
“We drif’ off mark. Dis boat drif’ ver’ fas’. Mus’ come ’round to mark again. We ’ave nuff feesh. Maybe we go now.”
Worcester agreed with Mattie, as he always would to his subtle suggestions. They hauled the sails aloft again, and the schooner gained way with her bows pointing a little east of north, tacking its way toward the north arm of Bay of Islands. Behind them the land closed so that there appeared to be no way into the deep fjord from which they had just sailed. And high above it all spread the snow-capped escarpments of the Long Range Mountains.
They cooked the codfish in the small galley as they sailed, and ate their fill of the sweet flesh on the open, sun-drenched deck of the bustling little schooner after they had tied her helm. And while the two men supped, the fragrant summer wind came and gently luffed the sails, providing music for the passengers of the Danny Boy.
Ever curious, Worcester asked the names of the islands and headlands they passed. Mattie gladly replied, calling out the name of each place of interest. The bay itself seemed to be shielded from the gulf by a string of islands that ran parallel to the inner coastline.
When Mattie told Worcester the names of two of the islands were Guernsey and Tweed, the American pointed out that they were also island names from the English Channel. They were the names of sheep’s wool found on these far-off islands. In fact, he had a fine guernsey sweater below in his duffle bag.
But it was the name of another island that really got the American’s full attention: Big Pearl Island. Here was the perfect opportunity to tell Mattie Mitchell the real reason for his visit to the west coast of Newfoundland.
Worcester told Mattie the story about the Cabots who had discovered Newfoundland. Mattie’s eyes narrowed and he turned away from him.
“Who discover? My people ’ere long before dat time. White man come without ask. Take many hunting lands. Net rivers and ponds, too. Salmon ver’ plenty before. White man put dem in barrels. Make dem stink wit’ salt. Not many salmon like before dis time.” Mattie spoke without looking at his companion.
Worcester saw the sudden change in the man and felt his quiet anger. He would never again underestimate his intelligence or his sensitivity. He apologized for his remark. The Indian was fiercely proud of his ancestry. Mattie was back to his amiable self again, and when Worcester told him about John Cabot giving the pearls to the king of England, Mattie posed one of his rare questions.
“How come, English man, no one ever see king of dis lan’?”
Worcester stared into the curious face of a man who really expected him to give a suitable answer and realized he had no answer that Mattie would understand. For the first time in his life, Worcester realized who really owned the lands they had fought over. He had no explanation to give.
Mattie threw a picked-clean sound from one of the cod over the side and watched a lone gull circle for the white bone. The Indian was still thinking about kings. He spoke again in his usual direct manner.
“We have ver’ many kings. We call dem chiefs. No Europe mans ever respec’ our chiefs. Ver’ first Mi’kmaq dey meet in Acadie is king. ’Is woman wit’ ’im, too. She be queen if she white. Still no respec’.” Mattie looked directly into Worcester’s eyes as he made his thoughtful statements.
Worcester had no way of knowing it, but Mattie Mitchell was right. In 1597, on Cape Breton Island, Itary was the first recorded Mi’kmaq to meet with the Europeans. They recorded him as “king” and his woman—whom they did not name—as queen. But above and below the historical entry, they were both referred to as “mere savages.”
They talked more then, as men will. And for both men it was a time of learning. Mattie told Worcester stories handed down for generations by the Saywedikiks—the ancients—of the Mi’kmaq people: of restless young Mi’kmaq men who had made their way across Acadie to the big western bay of great tides that the white men call Fundy; of how they had crossed this bay and followed the coastline south and entered the mouths of many mighty rivers; of one river called Missacipee far to the southwest that flowed out of an endless land, a river that was so long they found no end to it, even after two moons of searching. While the men talked, the soft summer wind came up out of the gulf and bore them gently to the north side of Bay of Islands.
There came a lull in their talk, and when Worcester figured Mattie’s mind was again in the present, he changed the subject completely and asked, “Is it possible to find blue mussels and/ or lobster around these shores, Mattie? It is a delicacy I dearly love.”
“Ver’ many mussels ever’where. We get pot full easy at low tide. Best time full moon. Full moon, full mussel shell. We use cod guts fer lobster bait. We hook dem ver’ easy.”
Although Worcester relished the idea of a pot filled with the tasty delicacies, his mind was on another type of shellfish. He decided to be as direct as his guide and speak his mind. “What about freshwater mussels or clams, Mattie? Have you seen any of them in the rivers hereabouts?”
Mattie replied without hesitation “Ver’ many black mussels in many rivers. Brooks, too. Dey no good fer grub. Dey stink ver’ bad when cookin’. Why you eat dem ones? Only muskrat eat dem ones.”
Worcester chuckled at the face Mattie made when talking about the mussels but quickly reassured him that he didn’t want them for food. He wanted them for the pearls that they may contain. Again Mattie answered right away.
“Ver’ many small pearls. Some big ones. Most grey ones. Some white ones.”
The wind faded away as early summer breezes sometimes do and the sails slacked and slumped a bit when the strength went out of them. Worcester walked aft over the spotless deck and started to tighten the sheets in an effort to take up the slack. Mattie joined him and released the big wheel from its fetters to steer the Danny Boy toward the closing land.
For two more days the American and what he now considered his Indian friend sailed and explored part of the western coast of Newfoundland in the trim little schooner. And in all of that time Worcester pumped the bilge only once. Frank had said it right. The salt sea waters had plimmed the schooner and she didn’t leak.
They ate their fill of cod and mussels and lobster pulled from the blue gulf waters by day, and slept like babes in the cradle of bunks in the Danny Boy by night. The wind from the Gulf of St. Lawrence stayed in their favour until late one evening, when Mattie steered the schooner into the black shadows of a high, sheltered cove.
“We leave scunner dis place, maybe. We use canoe after. Find ver’ many black mussels. Big pearls, too, maybe.”
They paddled ashore in Mattie’s canoe as they had been doing for the past several nights, but for Worcester this night was different. Mattie’s idea to leave the schooner unattended for several days was obviously the right one, but Worcester was reluctant to leave his boat. The tiny cove Mattie had chosen would keep the schooner safe from any wind, but it wasn’t that. Worcester feared having his schooner, or at least the property he would have to leave aboard, stolen. He voiced his concern to Mattie.
“Ever’one know you wit’ me. Ever’one know Frank’s Danny B’y. No man steal from me.” Mattie seemed unconcerned and went about starting their evening campfire.
Worcester was secretly unconvinced about a wandering stranger’s honesty. He had a good sum of American money in his duffle bag, all of the money in small bills. For some reason that he couldn’t explain, he didn’t tell Mattie about the money. He decided he wouldn’t leave the money behind but would take it with him.
Their evening meal consisted of freshly caught cod, which they cooked in a pot with less than an inch of salt water. In less than twenty minutes, Mattie dumped the boiled contents onto a flat rock. Along with the last of Millie’s bread, both men ate until they were full.
Mattie added small pieces of grey-white driftwood to the dying fire. The shadowed schooner swung and creaked on her hook. The campfire brightened the cove, and for a brief time its yellow light shone across the night water and reached partway up the port side of the moored vessel.
Worcester poked tobacco into the bowl of his briar, tamped it tight with a broad thumb, pulled a thin, hot brand from the fire, and lit his pipe. When the tobacco started to glow, he settled back. A blue stream of smoke issued from his unshaven jaws and escaped out of his long nose. He spoke with the pipe clenched between his strong white teeth.
“She surely is a fine vessel, you know. Frank did not ‘gyp’ me, that’s for sure. I know Frank’s attachment to the boat was quite different from my own, but I have already come to love the Danny Boy. And I believe you have enjoyed our little sailing excursion as well, Mattie.”
Mattie was looking at the schooner, too. He seemed to be considering something. Worcester waited. When Mattie spoke, his voice was soft and blended with the night sounds.
“My grandfather ’ave boat like Danny B’y, too. King of France give him scunner. King give king gif’.”
Worcester was astonished at this revelation and prompted Mattie to tell him more of his history. After his usual careful thinking, Mattie continued.
His people had always lived here, he said. They were hunter-gatherers. The ancients called this island Taqamkuk and came across the “south water” from Acadie. The white man came across the great ocean to the east and, because they had not seen this land before, called it a “new” land. The Mi’kmaq passed their history down through the ages orally, but because their words were not on paper, the white man called them liars. Here Mattie was quick to point out the many treaties the Europeans had signed on their yellow papers.
They had taken great nations of land that wasn’t theirs to take, in some cases doing so without consulting the native people, whom they considered had given them the land.
“White man lie wit’ tongue. Lie wit’ quill,” said Mattie.
The very first chief of Taqamkuk was Mattie’s great-grandfather, Michel Agathe. He was a Saqamaw, a very great and important chief who came from a long line of chieftains. He was respected by his people all along the south and west coasts of the island. His name was spoken the French way, Michel. The English, who hated everything French, and who couldn’t pronounce it right anyway, changed Mattie’s surname from Michel to Mitchell.
“French king give my grandfadder sloop as gif’. Just like Danny B’y, maybe?” Mattie continued.
Mattie’s grandfather was called Captain Jock and also King Mitchell, depending on who you talked to at the time. Worcester answered Mattie’s question quickly, wanting to hear more about the man’s fascinating past.
“A sloop is a boat with one mast instead of two, Mattie.”
Mattie acknowledged the answer with a look at the Danny Boy. The schooner had just turned broadside with the leaving tide. The tips of her two masts scratched the sky.
The king from faraway France had bestowed upon Mattie’s ancestor a great gift. It was a rare thing for anyone to give an Indian anything, though Mattie figured the French ruler wanted to trade it for the locations of the best coastal fishing grounds and all the hidden reefs. In his new boat, King Jock was now called Captain Jock, a title more prestigious around the coast of nineteenth-century Newfoundland.
The French learned from Captain Jock not only where to find cod, their best market product, but many other new world commodities. The Mi’kmaq captain showed them white beaches in secluded coves where capelin came in late spring. He knew the rivers with the biggest runs of salmon in summer. He knew every brook where shiny smelt could be caught in the spring and the autumn.
The clever Frenchmen gained much more than that from the proud captain. At their “king’s” command, native trappers passed the best of furs into French hands at the end of every winter season. The French learned the secrets of the countless forbidding bays and coves that defined this part of the coast. They gained infinite knowledge of the mysterious forested land, all in exchange for one wooden sloop.
His father, Mattie said, was a blooded Mi’kmaq named Jean Michael, whom the English called Jack or John Mitchell. At one time he lived in Conne River, a place were Mi’kmaq people found sanctuary from both French and English conquerors. It was situated at the end of a long bay that reached far inland. From Conne River, those who knew the way could follow meandering waterways into the vast interior of Newfoundland. Its entrance from the open sea was a puzzle of islands and deep canyons and dead-end arms that served as a deterrent to any would-be invaders.
Among the Mi’kmaq people John Mitchell was also known as King Mitchell. Like his father, he was a well-respected chieftain. His mother was the daughter of an Abenaki Indian who called the Abenaki “The Dawn People.” Her father was John Stevens, who led the first of the Mi’kmaq to Halls Bay, where Mattie had been born.
Mattie’s voice took on a measure of pride as he spoke of his ancestry. Worcester felt as though Mattie was pleased to talk to a white man who was listening. Mattie brought up his language again, as if he were sorry he couldn’t speak English very well and that maybe Worcester wasn’t understanding all that he was saying.
“When I speak only some of deir English words dey call me stupid man. When I speak my own words dey call me stupid man.”
Worcester sensed he would hear no more about Mattie Mitchell’s history on this night. “Mattie, I have studied in many places. I am considered to be a very educated man. I can speak no other language but my own. Yet you, who have had no schooling, and without being taught, can speak fluently not only your own wonderful language, but also English, which is considered to be the most difficult of all languages to learn. I can understand you very well. You have nothing to be ashamed of and a great deal to be proud of.”
Worcester stood to stretch his cramped legs. He suddenly thought of one of the long-winded professors who had taught him. The man could have used some of Mattie Mitchell’s direct way of speaking. If he had, Worcester thought, he could have stayed awake during his boring lectures. The American smiled at the thought and looked around the still cove. His gaze took in the firelight reflected across the black water.
“You know, Mattie,” he said sincerely, “if your skin were white, you would be considered as royalty.”
And Mattie Mitchell, who was the direct descendant of a legendary line of kings, walked away from the firelight to gather more driftwood. When he entered the shadows, he smiled at the thought.