Canadian Crusoes: A Tale of the Rice Lake Plains

by Catharine Parr Strickland Traill

One morning, just after a night of heavy rain and wind, the two boys went down to see if the lake was calm enough for trying the raft, which Louis had finished before the coming on of the bad weather. The water was rough and crested with mimic waves, and they felt not disposed to launch the raft on so stormy a surface, but they stood looking out over the lake and admiring the changing foliage, when Hector pointed out to his cousin a dark speck dancing on the waters, between the two nearest islands. The wind, which blew very strong still from the north-east, brought the object nearer every minute. At first they thought it might be a pine-branch that was floating on the surface, when as it came bounding over the waves, they perceived that it was a birch-canoe, but impelled by no visible arm. It was a strange sight upon that lonely lake to see a vessel of any kind afloat, and, on first deciding that it was a canoe, the boys were inclined to hide themselves among the bushes, for fear of the Indians, but curiosity got the better of their fears.

“The owner of yonder little craft is either asleep or absent from her; for I see no paddle, and it is evidently drifting without any one to guide it,” said Hector, after intently watching the progress of the tempest-driven vessel; assured as it approached nearer that such was the case, they hurried to the beach just as a fresh gust had lodged the canoe among the branches of a fallen cedar which projected out some way into the water.

By creeping along the trunk of the tree, and trusting at times to the projecting boughs, Louis, who was the most active and the lightest of weight, succeeded in getting within reach of the canoe, and with some trouble and the help of a stout branch that Hector handed to him, he contrived to moor her in safety on the shore, taking the precaution of hauling her well up on the shingle, lest the wind and water should set her afloat again. “Hec, there is something in this canoe, the sight of which will gladden your heart,” cried Louis with a joyful look. “Come quickly, and see my treasures.”

“Treasures! You may well call them treasures,” exclaimed Hector, as he helped Louis to examine the contents of the canoe, and place them on the shore, side by side.

The boys could hardly find words to express their joy and surprise at the discovery of a large jar of parched rice, a tomahawk, an Indian blanket almost as good as new, a large mat rolled up with a bass bark rope several yards in length wound round it, and what was more precious than all, an iron three-legged pot in which was a quantity of Indian corn. These articles had evidently constituted the stores of some Indian hunter or trapper; possibly the canoe had been imperfectly secured and had drifted from its moorings during the gale of the previous night, unless by some accident the owner had fallen into the lake and been drowned; this was of course only a matter of conjecture on which it was useless to speculate, and the boys joyfully took possession of the good fortune that had so providentially been wafted, as it were, to their very feet.

“It was a capital chance for us, that old cedar having been blown down last night just where it was,” said Louis; “for if the canoe had not been drawn into the eddy, and stopped by the branches, we might have lost it. I trembled when I saw the wind driving it on so rapidly that it would founder in the deep water, or go off to Long Island.”

“I think we should have got it at Pine-tree Point,” said Hector, “but I am glad it was lodged so cleverly among the cedar boughs. I was half afraid you would have fallen in once or twice, when you were trying to draw it nearer to the shore.” “Never fear for me, my friend; I can cling like a wild cat when I climb. But what a grand pot! What delightful soups, and stews, and boils, Catharine will make! Hurrah!” and Louis tossed up his new fur cap, that he had made with great skill from an entire fox skin, in the air, and cut sundry fantastic capers which Hector gravely condemned as unbecoming his mature age; (Louis was turned of fifteen;) but with the joyous spirit of a little child he sung, and danced, and laughed, and shouted, till the lonely echoes of the islands and far-off hills returned the unusual sound, and even his more steady cousin caught the infection, and laughed to see Louis so elated.

Leaving Hector to guard the prize, Louis ran gaily off to fetch Catharine to share his joy, and come and admire the canoe, and the blanket, and the tripod, and the corn, and the tomahawk. Indiana accompanied them to the lake shore, and long and carefully she examined the canoe and its contents, and many were the plaintive exclamations she uttered as she surveyed the things piece by piece, till she took notice of the broken handle of an Indian paddle which lay at the bottom of the vessel; this seemed to afford some solution to her of the mystery, and by broken words and signs she intimated that the paddle had possibly broken in the hand of the Indian, and that in endeavouring to regain the other part, he had lost his balance and been drowned. She showed Hector a rude figure of a bird engraved with some sharp instrument, and rubbed in with a blue colour. This, she said, was the totem or crest of the chief of the tribe, and was meant to represent a crow. The canoe had belonged to a chief of that name. While they were dividing the contents of the canoe among them to be carried to the shanty, Indiana, taking up the bass-rope and the blanket, bundled up the most of the things, and adjusting the broad thick part of the rope to the front of her head, she bore off the burden with great apparent ease, as a London or Edinburgh porter would his trunks and packages, turning round with a merry glance and repeating some Indian words with a lively air as she climbed with apparent ease the steep bank, and soon distanced her companions, to her great enjoyment. That night, Indiana cooked some of the parched rice, Indian fashion, with venison, and they enjoyed the novelty very much—it made an excellent substitute for bread, of which they had been so long deprived.

Indiana gave them to understand that the rice harvest would soon be ready on the lake, and that now they had got a canoe, they would go out and gather it, and so lay by a store to last them for many months.

This little incident furnished the inhabitants of the shanty with frequent themes for discussion. Hector declared that the Indian corn was the most valuable of their acquisitions. “It will insure us a crop, and bread and seed-corn for many years,” he said; he also highly valued the tomahawk, as his axe was worn and blunt.