LITMIR.BIZ

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saluted the strange pine and gave three cheers.

      In a flash, Médard and Pierre jumped into the water and waded through the weeds.

      Etienne watched them convey the goods to the grassy shore. Pierre’s look told him he would not get a ride this time. With a clumsy leap, he went over the side. He whimpered as his aching legs met the icy water.

      Médard and Pierre carried the canoe from the water and set it on its side. Its large painted eye stared upward to the heavens.

      Soon the sweet smell of roasting venison curled about their nostrils. “Souper!” someone called out, and the men gathered in a circle tearing meat from the bone as fast as they could.

      By the light of the noisy, crackling fire, Etienne inspected the contents of his brown sack. The largest item was a bedroll with a red woollen blanket. A stained leather apron lay inside a grey wool cloak. There was a cloth pouch that turned out to be a sewing kit. He examined the pair of scissors and spool of hemp. Opening a small tin, he found several horn buttons, three iron needles, two metal pins and a thimble. Etienne unfolded a lace-edged handkerchief of fine linen to discover an embossed silver case with a mirrored lid. Lastly he removed a soft woollen bundle. As the mound of half-finished knitting tumbled from the two wooden rods, a huge spark from the fire landed on the coarse wool. Etienne jumped up and shook it off.

      “Brought your knitting, have you?” one of the voyageurs called out. His merry eyes shone in the light of the fire. A huge roar of laughter came from those around.

      Etienne stuffed the items back into the sack, his face the colour of a berry. That boy’s mother must have been a seamstress. What did his father do?

      Before he settled beneath his canoe roof, Etienne studied the faces of his fellow travellers in the firelight. The smoke from their pipes lay above their heads like a storm cloud. Amid their tang of sweat and tobacco and loud belches, they boasted of trades and troubles. These men of the woods were nothing like what he had expected.

      Neither is this journey, he thought, bitten by bugs, scorched by the sun, and sick from the motion.

      The evening wind rustled the trees and the waves slapped against the shore.

      Etienne watched a man add handfuls of dried peas to the large tin kettle hanging over the fire. As the voices died out, frogs croaked in their place.

      He wrapped his arms around his huddled knees and put his head down. Loneliness burned inside him like the embers of the fire. A thickness rose in the back of his throat. He realized he had nothing of his parents or of his home but the chickens.

      FOUR

      Portage

      Levez-vous, levez-vous, nos gens!” resounded through the camp before the first glimmer of light. The long route lay up the wide St. Lawrence River to its meeting with the great northern river. In the cold, clammy air of a grey morning, they paddled upriver. Scarcely an hour had gone by when mist enveloped them. Etienne pulled out the cloak.

      The water murmured as it swirled over protruding rocks. Again and again, Médard turned the canoe aside in less than a second with a single stroke of his paddle to avoid sunken rocks. From ahead came a great roar. Everyone leaped from the canoes and hauled their freight over the sides. Médard yelled above the roar. “You are in charge of all you own.”

      “Where are we going?” Etienne yelled back, but his voice was lost in the thunder of the rapids. He had no choice but to gather his things and plunge into the icy water.

      Amable, the man in the beaver hat, tied a pack onto straps dangling from a leather collar. He slung it over his neck and pulled it up to his forehead. He turned to the man called Henri, who placed a second pack on top of the first. Amable picked up a bundle in each hand. Others did the same. They left half-running, slightly bent, up the steep path.

      Those remaining threw the canoes up onto their shoulders and followed.

      Etienne stumbled along carrying the chicken cage, his drawstring sack and a heavy burlap bag Médard pressed into his arms. They followed the well-trodden portage route along the gorge. The effort of clambering up the steep side of the falls made Etienne’s head swim. At the top, he was breathless and soaked with spray.

      But they did not rest. On they went, through deep mud, littered with fallen branches and exposed roots. Branches smacked him in the face. Clouds of black flies, thick as dust, took large chunks of skin, making his blood run.

      Etienne tripped on the heavy, wet cloak, wrenched his ankle and fell into a pile of rotting branches. He dragged the cloak off and threw it to the ground. With a handful of damp grass, he wiped the blood from the cut on his leg. Why had he let that boy trick him into this?

      When they reached the lake, and climbed back into the canoes, there was a crash of thunder, and a great wall of rain swept across them. Etienne watched the storm lash the water’s surface into waves of green. His cap was plastered to his head. The cold pierced his very bones.

      Médard pulled off his deerskin jacket and stuffed it into his pouch. Etienne watched the cold rain course down his bare muscular back. Médard didn’t seem to notice. “Vite,” he urged them as they paddled along the shore to the next camp.

      Etienne copied the others, taking off his clothes, wringing them out and hanging them over the rocks. Naked, they unrolled blankets and bolts of cloth and laid them across the great bushes to dry. Everyone huddled about the roaring fire.

      As his aching body tried to claim sleep, the bushes reminded Etienne of his socks and shirts flapping on his mother’s clothesline. That boy is probably wearing them right now, he thought in anger. Why didn’t I bring them with me?

      Day after day they forged ahead. They paddled for hours before stopping to rest. Then the voyageurs laid their paddles across their laps and rested their shoulders against the freight. They passed around a common dish of pea and pork mash. How Etienne craved a slice of his mother’s tourtière. The tin at his side held nothing but bits of dried peas and grain for the chickens. Why did I leave? he asked himself again and again, but he knew the answer.

      Etienne would never forget the day his father had invited the habitant into their home. The man’s pox-marked face, scarred nostril, and black, broken teeth had forced Etienne to leave the table. But his tales came alive as Etienne stared into the red flames of the hearth, listening. Even though the hero of every adventure was himself, the trader told tales of people who wore animal skins, danced to drums, and lived in houses built like caves. That night, Etienne made up his mind not to become a farmer like his father. His destiny, he thought, was to be that of a great explorer like Samuel de Champlain.

      They worked the canoes up the rivers and down roaring canyons. They poled across smooth water and battled frothing rapids. Each night they unloaded in the water, carried the canoes ashore, ate and slept.

      Pierre taught Etienne to build a bed of pine boughs to cushion the hard earth. Even though it was spring, the nights were cold. Etienne huddled under his blanket, wishing he had not cast away the cloak in anger.

      “We could always roast the fowl,” one of the men suggested when they learned the last of the salt pork was gone.

      Etienne threw his blanket over the chickens’ cage. Afraid of crying, he tried to laugh. “You will have to answer to the Father of the Mission,” he said in what he hoped would be a threatening voice. But it came out like a whine.

      The twisted trees made the forest look frightening. In the distance they heard the howls of wolves. Sometimes there were rustling sounds nearby. Once, Etienne saw a pair of eyes gleaming in the dark. It would be easy for a hungry animal to take the chickens. Cringing at the thought, he prayed that no forest creature would visit their camp.

      Some voyageurs settled to sleep under their blankets on the shore, while others talked in the firelight. Snippets of conversation drifted about.

      “I’m

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