Where the River Takes Me Page 5

  I’ve just had some pemmican. Many of the people here know one another, from other brigades or Forts in the Columbia District, and the Andersons have friends who were passengers on the Cadboro. There are a lot of children here, like Aurelia and Bella Yale, for instance, and everyone is friendly enough, but I feel a bit lonely.

  I will feel better once we continue our journey.

  Thursday, July 25th

  Au revoir, Jean-Pierre! The brigades left with their provisions this morning and tomorrow we leave Fort Langley.

  My Adventure will continue at sea!

  Friday, July 26th

  We left Fort Langley this morning in canoes — huge dugout canoes manned by Indians from Fort Victoria. Eliza and I were in one, with Mr. Douglas, and James was in the other. The river widened and branched off in many directions, and as we got closer to the sea I could smell the tang of salt water. The Cadboro had left well before us and was waiting at the mouth of Fraser’s River — and there the water changed colour, from the silty brown of the river to the blue of the sea.

  I saw what appeared to be an island and said, “Is that Vancouver’s Island?”

  Mr. Douglas said no, it was just one of the many small islands in the strait between the mainland and Vancouver’s Island. He pointed to a range of high mountains, hazy in the distance, and said that was Vancouver’s Island, and we were making for the southeast tip.

  The island looks enormous!

  We are now on board the Cadboro and tonight we are sleeping in hammocks. My stomach already feels queasy with the rocking of the ship — even tho’ it is at anchor — and my writing is getting wobbly so I will stop for now.

  Saturday, July 27th

  Land! It does not pitch or roll!

  I am sitting in the shade of a magnificent maple at a place called Point Roberts, where the canoes were forced to land a few moments ago. My stomach was exceedingly thankful.

  We left the Cadboro this a.m. and reboarded the canoes, after a night of hammock-rolling and mosquito-swatting. It is a wonder I didn’t roll out of the hammock altogether! It was thrilling to be on the sea and away from the river, each stroke of the paddles taking us farther from the mainland, but the thrill did not last, for the wind began to whip the sea into mountains and valleys! It was a terrifying experience to be in the canoe as it rode to the peak of one wave, only to plunge nose down into the dip before the next one. Up and down, so far down I could not see above the oncoming wave and feared I might never see land again, let alone touch it.

  We put to land before I lost my Breakfast, but Eliza was not so fortunate.

  The men have set up camp and we are staying here until the wind dies down. I hope it will take some time, but if I am to live on an island, I suppose I will have to get used to rough water. Facing a tumultuous sea will be part of the Adventure, like facing a blizzard or an ice storm at home. No matter what the conditions, an adventurer must have courage and fortitude.

  I can use my sea experience as part of my Novel!

  “Heave, ho!” Captain Jean-Pierre hollers. “A storm of immense proportions is surging towards our gallant vessel and our lives are in perilous danger …”

  James has come to sit beside me, looking glum. He was climbing a maple tree and fell. Mr. Douglas was greatly alarmed — he rushed over to help James get up and to make sure he wasn’t hurt. (He wasn’t.)

  I am glad James did not dare me to follow, for I would have done so. The branches look very inviting.

  Later

  A short time ago James asked what I was writing. I told him I was writing an account of my adventurous journey as practice for writing a Novel.

  “Am I in it?” he says.

  “Do you want to be?”

  “Yes!” he says.

  “Well that’s good, because you already are.”

  I read out the bits about him and he was pleased, except for the tree part.

  “Change it so I don’t fall,” he says.

  I promised I would change it in the Novel itself, but not now, because now I have to record the facts truthfully. In the real Novel I can make changes.

  “So if there are people you don’t like,” James says, “you can make something bad happen to them.”

  I had not thought of that until he mentioned it, but he is right. I can do anything I want in my Novel. I could even use a real person as a model for the Hero or the Villain.

  List of Potential Villains

  No one, except for Aunt Grace when she was cross

  List of Potential Heroes and Heroines

  Father

  Jenna

  Suzanne

  maybe Jean-Pierre

  Sunday, July 28th

  Land again, and almost time for Breakfast. This time we are on a small pebbly beach. I’m close to the fire, wrapped in a wooly HBCo blanket and trying to get warm.

  We left Point Roberts yesterday evening while it was still light. The wind had died down but there was still the odd whitecap skipping along the waves. It was a pretty sight, and the sunset was glorious.

  Eliza and I were curled up on mats in the centre of the canoe, and when it started to get dark we were given blankets to make up a bed. It was cozy and warm — and adventurous, spending the night on the water — and I fell asleep listening to the splash of paddles and the paddlers’ songs. They sing to the rhythm of the paddles like the canadiens do, but their songs sound more adventurous — even fierce, to my mind, as if the paddlers were warning the sea that if it dared to stir up the waves they would be ready! I felt content and safe and not a bit queasy.

  Just before dawn I awoke and discovered I was drenched and the canoe was taking on water. The wind was blowing a gale, howling over our heads. The paddlers were yelling, one man bailing as fast as the water poured in. Eliza cried for her father and I was anxious for fear my journey might come to an untimely end. At the same time, I found the experience wildly adventurous.

  Even more exciting was when one of the men took a blanket and made a sail! With that we rode the waves at tremendous speed and made straight for land.

  Last night before I fell asleep I saw something mysterious. With each stroke of the paddles a strange silvery glow appeared, like a cauldron of stars, a sky turned upside-down. I do not know the cause but it was truly a wondrous sight.

  Mr. Douglas told me that our paddlers are “Songhees.” They come from a village near Fort Victoria. I spoke to one in Cree but he did not understand — and told me so in English. It was broken English mixed in with some of his own language, so it was a little hard to follow, but I made sense of it all the same. It was foolish to think he would know Cree away out here, for even the Plains Indians have different languages.

  Now it is time for Breakfast, and a long rest before we set off again.

  Monday, July 29th

  Today is my 13th birthday! I told the others, and they wished me a happy birthday, which cheered me up for a while, but I’m feeling sad again. It’s the first birthday I’ve spent away from Fort Edmonton and, not being with my family and friends, and with the land and sea and air so different — there’s too much missing for a birthday. Even the smell is different here, especially when the tide is out, like now. Eugh! It’s like fishy, salty mud.

  We are on land again, this time for Supper. The sea is much calmer. Tonight we will sleep in the canoe and tomorrow we will reach Fort Victoria!

  Tuesday, July 30th

  At last I am in Fort Victoria on Vancouver’s Island! Presently seated at a small writing table in the girls’ dormitory, on the upper floor of Bachelors’ Hall. Eliza and James were taken to Mr. Douglas’s house and the other school boarders are elsewhere and I will be meeting them shortly. Meanwhile, I have “my new home” to myself. Mrs. Staines (who runs the school with her husband) gave me a few moments to “freshen up” before Tea, but there is precious little water for washing, and I must record the end of my Travel Adventure before my School Adventure begins.

  My introduction to Vancouver’s Island wa
s a wet one, thanks to Eliza. She splashed me to wake me up! I yelped with the shock, for the water was icy cold. And as James’s canoe was drawing up alongside ours, we woke him up the same way, and he splashed us back!

  Our water fight might have continued had not Mr. Douglas interrupted. “Clover Point,” he said, indicating the grassy point of land we were passing. He told us he had stepped ashore on that point seven years earlier, while searching for a site to build a new Pacific Fort, and had walked over fields knee-deep in red clover and wild grasses.

  A short time later he drew our attention to a hill whose slopes ended at rocky cliffs dropping to the sea. “That’s Beacon Hill,” he said. “A short walk from the Fort.”

  The hill is impressive, but the beacon is no more than an empty barrel on top of a pole. Mr. Douglas said its purpose is to warn ships of a dangerous rocky ledge that remains underwater even at low tide.

  We passed several crane-like birds, greyish-blue in colour, standing or wading in the shallows. They moved gingerly, raising and lowering one long leg at a time, as if they did not like getting their feet wet. James called them herons and said they were fishing. They did not seem bothered when we paddled by.

  Nor did the seals! There were dozens of them, playing and basking on a rocky island not far from shore.

  It was a beautiful morning for our arrival. Clear sky, sparkly sea, white-peaked mountains across the strait to our left, and on our right, the coast of Vancouver’s Island.

  Eventually we entered a narrow passage bordered by dense green forest. It was fortunate the Songhees knew where they were going, for I would have kept paddling and missed the entrance.

  Before we knew it we had rounded a point, and there was the harbour. A gigantic ship was at anchor — a hundred times bigger than the Cadboro — and standing like a sentinel above the harbour was my new home, Fort Victoria — its HBCo flag snapping in the breeze and the men firing

  Oh, mon dieu, I almost forgot. Time for Tea!

  Later

  I have disgraced myself and learned my first lesson. When Mrs. Staines tells you to freshen up you must do so, no matter how little water there is.

  I made it to Tea barely on time, but when I presented myself in the school’s dining room, Mrs. Staines took one look at my face, hands and fingernails and growled, “This will not do.”

  I fled upstairs and scrubbed up as best I could. Mrs. Staines looked me over a second time and allowed me to stay, tho’ grudgingly. Thank goodness I even remembered the Tea. Had I appeared late as well as unwashed, I might have been locked in the Bastion.

  So, to continue where I left off.

  The men fired up the cannon to welcome Mr. Douglas and we went ashore. We had to climb an embankment to reach the Fort and I was looking here, there, everywhere, instead of watching my step, so I stumbled and fell onto the path. The Kanaka carrying my cassette and trunk helped me up. (I have learned that there are many Kanakas working here. They come from the Sandwich Islands — in the Pacific Ocean but farther south — where the HBCo ships go to trade.)

  A man with a pale face and big moustache greeted Mr. Douglas in the Fort yard, tho’ neither looked overly keen to see the other. His name is Mr. Blanshard, and he is the Governor of the Colony.

  There were many children about, eyeing the “newcomers,” no doubt wondering who was who and what we would be like, but I had no time to eye them, for Mrs. Staines whisked me up to the dormitory. I did have a chance to eye her — a raven with its feathers fluffed out. But fluffed out crisp, black and shiny, with not a feather out of place.

  One of the girls, Lucy, gave me a sympathetic smile at Tea, when I was sent back to wash, and even rolled her eyes in Mrs. Staines’s direction, as if to say, Don’t take it too hard, we have all been in the same situation.

  Everyone was friendly at Tea, the girls and boys who are boarding at the School, and we were all introduced but I have forgotten half the names.

  Lucy has been a pupil here for months and knows a lot about the place. She told me that the big ship in the harbour is the Norman Morison, the Home Ship. It left London last October, sailed around Cape Horn at the tip of South America, then headed up the coast to Fort Victoria. It arrived here in March with a year’s supply of goods. No wonder it is so huge! I expect the Home Ship in Hudson’s Bay is the same. Father used to describe how big it was, but I could never picture it until now.

  I just remembered something curious. When we were paddling into the harbour I spotted an enclosure a little ways from the Songhees village (which is across the water from the Fort). There were four animals inside that looked so white and woolly I thought they were sheep. Well Mr. Douglas explained that they are actually a type of dog, but are shorn like sheep, and their hair is woven into blankets.

  Eliza and I thought he was teasing and started to laugh, but he assured us that what he said was true. What’s more, he told us that the wool dogs are so valuable they are kept on a nearby island, well away from the other dogs, and we were lucky to have seen any at all that close to the village. (They might have been ill or about to have puppies.) We heard them too — a high-pitched howl that sounded more like coyotes than regular dogs.

  The trees here are gigantic, taller and wider than any I have seen, and they are everywhere, even in the Fort yard — six massive oaks, one of which James has already tried to climb. (He was not successful, but at least he did not fall.)

  Wednesday, July 31st

  My first full day at Fort Victoria is almost over. I have found a cool spot beside the Bastion wall and will stay here until the mosquitoes drive me indoors. (Are there any prisoners in the Bastion? In my Novel I could help one escape!)

  After Breakfast Lucy showed me around the Fort. I tried to take in all the details so I could write about it, but Lucy is such a talker I doubt if I can remember the half of it.

  We started by climbing upstairs to the Gallery — the one at the northwest corner of the Fort. A rare treat, for normally we are not permitted, but this time Mr. Douglas gave us permission.

  Oh, what a spectacular experience, looking over the top of the stockade! The mountains across the strait, the entrance to the harbour, the Songhees village across the harbour, James Bay (the name of the bay near the Fort), a salmon house on the beach, the long inlet flowing to the north — Lucy called it the “Arm” and said it was a fine place for an outing — and rolling hills in the west. And in the east, all on its own, an enormous, cone-shaped, snow-covered mountain called Mount Baker, which Lucy said was a volcano that could erupt anytime! (I could put that in my Novel!)

  And there’s a deep ravine close by with a cemetery on the edge and an inviting little bay where the ravine meets the harbour and where the boys like to go bathing — well, I was so taken by the splendour of my new surroundings I did a bit of a jig, which made Lucy and the watchman laugh. (But not unkindly.)

  Then the watchman took us to the Gallery in the southeast corner. Lucy pointed out the Company gardens directly outside the Fort and next to them, Reverend Staines’s garden where he grows his “prized lettuce” and other vegetables. Lucy said that the boys have to weed and thin out the plants and her brother Alec (who’s also at the School) hates it. There are more Company gardens farther out to the east and also to the south on the other side of the Bay. And a very large farm called North Dairy Farm to the north where they have sheep as well as cows, and a smaller dairy close to the Fort where we get our milk.

  Lucy pointed out the start of a trail that goes around James Bay to Beacon Hill and said the class sometimes goes there for Nature Studies and picnics — oh, I cannot wait to explore!

  The northeast and southwest corners are 8-sided bastions with openings in the top for the cannon and rifles.

  After we came down from the Gallery, Lucy whisked me around the yard, pointing out belfry, bunkhouses, Trade Store, Company Store, storehouse for furs, blacksmith’s shop — where the smithy, Mr. Beauchamp, fires up the marbles that the boys make out of clay — and the buildings whe
re Mr. Douglas and his family live and where Mr. Finlayson and his family live and the quarters where the workers and their families live — my goodness, there was a lot to take in for such a small Fort.

  What else? Oh, a stable for horses outside the stockade and a barn, a pigsty, a bakery, and more than that I cannot remember. But I will know well enough before long.

  The upper floor of Bachelors’ Hall has the girls’ dormitory and the boys’ dormitory. The lower floor has the teachers’ quarters and a room where we have lessons and meals (so I will call it the School and Dining Room to make it sound grand).

  The quarters for the unmarried officers take up the largest part of Bachelors’ Hall. There is a large Common Room in the centre and two rooms on either side, each with its own door, where the men sleep. I hope they don’t snore as vigorously as Uncle Rory.

  It is a novelty, eating in a room with only the other boarders and Mrs. Staines. The other children at the Fort take their meals in the dining hall with the women, same as usual. (I looked inside the dining hall and it is very plain, not grand like the one in Fort Edmonton with its painted walls and gilt scrolls.) A Mr. Field and his wife serve our meals.