Forward
Note: I originally posted this blog under the heading: “True Tales: The Telling and Writing of History.” I’ve retracted the original post, rewritten parts of it, and posted it under a new title because I felt the short story got lost in the old title. So, for some of you (but very few) the content below will be familiar.
Reading a history book, or an archaeological site report, is pretty boring. We seem to have a knack for putting people to sleep. But then, we never majored in entertainment. Our goal was to find and present evidence and facts about the human past, then interpret them; both had to stand up to the scrutiny of our peers.
Believe me, entertainment never entered the picture.
In my last stint with the Government of Alberta I helped design a few of the human history galleries at the new Royal Alberta Museum. We told the stories of Alberta’s human history, using the archaeological and ethnographic objects in our collections to support those stories.
Our superiors were not always satisfied with just achieving historic accuracy. This was a public institution and people payed to get in. So, “Make it interesting,” were often the comments I received. Make history interesting? Are you kidding? It was hard enough to make it accurate, let alone interesting.
That museum stint was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my career.
However, the Royal Alberta Museum experience got me thinking about how else we might make history more appealing to a broader audience. Perhaps in writing? Story telling? Certainly not written like those detailed history or archaeology books. Don’t get me wrong. Those works are vital. But, often reading them is pretty hard slogging for most people.
Recently I started dabbling in the literary genre of Historical Fiction. It’s another way of presenting history to the general public. But perhaps in a little more palatable form. Unfortunately the word fiction occurs in the genre’s name, and people immediately think that what they are reading is all fantasy – words and ideas imagined, but not grounded in historic facts. Done well, historical fiction should do both: inform you about human history, and entertain you. However, to accomplish this task, some of the content has to be fictionalized.
Let’s look at an example. In one of my posts, I described how stone tobacco pipes found at 18th and 19th century western Canadian fur trade posts have an eastern Canadian Indigenous origin. The archaeological evidence also suggests those more common fragile clay tobacco pipes, smoked by the majority of fort workers, broke a lot. Using those facts, I added the names of some French Canadians working in northern Alberta forts, then placed them in an accurate-as-possible late 18th-19th century Canadian wilderness setting.
And then I wrote a short story how these hardened men, paddling their birch bark freight canoes for endless hours, occasionally stopped and smoked their tobacco pipes. However, one tobacco pipe in particular stood out. It’s a very peculiar tobacco pipe we found at Fort Vermilion (c.1798 – 1830), Alberta, Canada. I won’t say more about it, so as not to give the story away.
‘Pick Your Poison’: The Story of Louis’ Peculiar Tobacco Pipe
An old voyageur once said: “ I could carry, paddle, walk and sing with any man I ever saw. I have been twenty-four years a canoe man, and forty-one years in service; no portage was ever too long for me, fifty songs could I sing. I have saved the lives of ten voyageurs, have had twelve wives and six running dogs. I spent all of my money in pleasure. Were I young again, I would spend my life the same way over. There is no life so happy as a voyageur’s life!” (from James H. Baker, Lake Superior, Minnesota Historical Collections, 3:342)
Pierre spat out a litany of curse words which even made some of the more hardened voyageurs, paddling the twenty-five long birch bark freight canoe, blush. Finally ending in, “Merde, I broke another one, Cardinal. Now what?” He took the broken remnants of his clay tobacco pipe and savagely flung them overboard towards the fast moving waters of the great river. Instead, sparks and ashes flew everywhere. Some landing on the heads of his compatriots.
His usually silent partner, Cardinal, kneeling beside him in the big canoe, only spat. He learned long ago that these stupid pipes were nothing but trouble. “Chew the stuff, Pierre. Don’t smoke it and you won’t have these troubles.” He spat again.
The brigade’s expressman, Louis, perched at the end of their canoe, yelled out. “Which king are you going to blame and curse for your misfortunes this time, Pierre? Louis or Charles?” Pierre said nothing and finally pointed at the Union Jack emblazoned on the corner of the Canadian North West Company flag fluttering on a pole at the stern of the canoe. “Him.”
The men, trying their best to ignore Pierre, continued paddling up the winding river, moving west with their cargo. They sang, they cursed, they swatted at the swarms of bugs trying to suck the life out of them.
One of the men, finally tiring of Pierre’s latest tirade, changed the subject. He looked over at Blanchet. “So why don’t these cursed mosquitoes and black flies bite you, Blanchet? They’re eating us alive. Some of us are beginning to look pale because of the loss of blood.”
Francois immediately piped up. “It’s because he smells so rank they won’t go near him. Or, perhaps they’re afraid of him. Look at him. He wears that stupid-looking toque day and night now. Add a pair of bells on his toes and he would look the perfect fool. Not far to go there.” More laughter.
Francois wasn’t done. “Or, maybe they can’t find him in the canoe, he’s so short. His head barely clears the gunwales. Good thing his arms are long or his paddle wouldn’t touch the water.”
Francois always had a choice word or two for his partner beside him in the freight canoe. For his efforts he received a paddle of river water in the face from Blanchet. Everyone continued to rib Blanchet for a few more minutes. Finally the brigade stopped again for a break. In each canoe, they were eight strong carrying thirty pieces of freight, each weighing about ninety-pounds, up the rivers to the inland western forts.
Pierre was still fuming, mumbling under his breath. He reluctantly took out a new clay tobacco pipe, filled it with coarse tobacco, and lit up. Blanchet tried not to laugh. Why would he? He had already broken two of his own tobacco pipes and only had two left.
Pierre wouldn’t let up. “At this rate I won’t make it to the next fort before I run out of pipes. These damned things are no good. They burn my lips when I smoke them, and break when I even look at them.”
Then Pierre’s complaining turned in another direction. “And, merde, this stinking American tobacco smells and tastes like horse shit. Oh, what I would give now for some good Hudson’s Bay Company Brazilian tobacco…”
Near the back of the canoe, their expressman, Louis, cut off the fuming Pierre. “And you’ve tried smoking horse shit then, Pierre? You seem to know a lot about it.”
No one laughed. The men barely tolerated the expressman. He had a history.
Louis never had any problems with his tobacco pipe. He smoked a small grey little tobacco pipe, with rather large tulip-shaped bowl. Whenever anyone asked Louis about his pipe, he was always very evasive. When they wanted to examine it he wouldn’t let them.
“Is that pipe sacred, Louis, or what? I think you sleep with it in your mouth. Why don’t you let us see it? And why doesn’t it break? You’ve had that pipe forever.
“Why don’t you shut up and save your breath complaining. Make your own pipes from stronger materials. So they won’t break? You won’t ever make a pipe like this one though. This one’s special.”
……………….
Once the brigades reached their destiny, a few of the men took Louis’ words to heart. Throughout the long, harsh, northern Canadian winter they busied themselves carving a better tobacco pipe, from local rocks and hardwoods. A pipe more like Louis’, that wouldn’t break.
Next spring, as soon as most of the ice left the river, the canoe brigades began their long journey back to Montreal with their furs. Together again, the men joked and talked as they paddled in their canoe. Even looking forward to the long, arduous journey to Montreal. Happy and content. Because it was still too early for the first hatch of bugs. And getting away from the tedious fort life, the screaming children, after a long winter, was a relief.
The water was their home. This is where they were most comfortable. There was barely eighteen inches separating them from a cold, wet death as they sat low in their canoes laden with furs. Soon they would come to the ‘Chutes’ – the most dangerous rapids between their fort and Fort Chipewyan.
Louis sat at the back of the canoe calmly smoking his peculiar pipe. Pierre pulled out his newly made stone pipe and lit it. He had spent many hours carefully carving the hard stone and drilling holes in it for the stem and bowl.
Louis looked at Pierre. “Ah, Pierre, I see you carved a new tobacco pipe last winter. How is it? Does it smoke well? Is it strong? It looks nice, my friend.”
“I’m not your friend,” thought Pierre. He waved his new stone pipe in the air for everyone in the canoe to see. “The Iroquois along the St. Lawrence make this kind of pipe. I used local stones. Finally a tobacco pipe I can trust. It took me all winter to carve these two, but they seem to work well.”
As he was talking his pipe cooled down. Hot, cold, hot, cold. There’s only so much change in temperature a pipe can stand. Pierre finished his smoke. He banged his pipe against the side of the canoe to knock out the wattle. With his final tap the bowl snapped off, disappearing into the swirling, muddy water.
Again, Pierre was cursing. The more he cursed, the more the men laughed. Someone shouted, “It was too heavy anyway, Pierre. You would have sunk like a stone if you’d fallen into the river with it.” Pierre now had only one pipe left all the way to Montreal.
“Well Pierre, that pipe didn’t seem to last very long either. Nothing like mine,” bragged Louis. Pierre only mumbled under his breath. No one could seem to make a pipe as strong as Louis. The stone pipes became brittle from smoking and broke. And the ones made of wood were no better. They burned because the western trees weren’t hard enough.
The men turned and looked longingly at Louis’ pipe. Again they begged him to tell them his secret. “Tell us Louis. How do you make a pipe like that? To last so long?” But he refused to divulge his secret.
The men paddled, then smoked. Then ate and slept. Woke before dawn, and paddled some more. For endless days, then weeks, then months.
Finally, Montreal was in sight. But the stay was short-lived. Once the freight canoes were repaired and loaded with trade goods, and the men had some time in the City to squander their hard-won earnings, it was time to return to the western forts. Thousands of miles of lakes and rivers to paddle and portage in the hot summer weather. Upstream all the way. Off they went, effortlessly paddling their fragile crafts through the often turbulent waters. Their short paddles were just a blur in the brilliant sunlight, moving the sleek craft against the river currents steadily upstream. Louis sat at the back, as usual, smoking his little tobacco pipe. Cardinal looked back and spat – as usual. Particularly when he looked at Louis.
As Cardinal turned away, Louis looked at his strong back and shoulders, thinking. “Hard to know what that one is made of. Maybe French Canadian, maybe part Iroquois/French Canadian.” It really didn’t matter much to Louis. Cardinal paddled with the best of them and never complained. But he sure spat a lot.
They came to yet another portage. The men began the backbreaking work of carrying their cargo around the rapids. After they disembarked, Louis shouted over to Cardinal. “Where’s your tobacco pipe, Cardinal? Good chance to have a smoke along this long portage. Did it break too”, yelled a somewhat puffed up Louis?”
“Petit malin. Smug, arrogant ass, sitting there in the back of the canoe like he owns the west,” he murmured. “Maybe he thinks he’s the next king. King Louis the XV.” All Cardinal heard for endless days coming out of Louis’ ugly yap was, “Faster men, harder, put your backs into it.” Between puffs on his pipe, Louis constantly gave orders. Always smoking that damned pipe. Or mocking his men when their pipes broke.
A bent over Cardinal walked toward Louis, carrying two ninety pound bales on his back. His tumpline, which was his colourful Assumption sash, usually tied around his waist, was now strung around his forehead. It was taunt from holding the the bales. “Remember knot-head, I don’t smoke.” Just as he passed Louis, he spat out a long stream of green tobacco juice that landed all over Louis’ fine moccasins. The men watched the encounter and then began to compile a song about Louis’ fine moccasins as they staggered up the portage trail behind Cardinal carrying their bales.
Louis let loose a long string of French curses at Cardinal’s disappearing hulk. “Tomorrow I’ll make you paddle harder, you idiot. And carry more packs up the portages than the others. I’ll even put a black mark beside your name in my record book.”
Cardinal just laughed. “Who cares,” he thought. He knew better. The Company needed his skills and his brawn. They were the best canoe-men in the country. Even their competition admitted it.
And that imbecile, Louis, didn’t have a book. Why would he. He was illiterate, like the rest of them. Cardinal yelled back. “I’ll remember that, Louis. Not to spit on your fine leathers again. Next time I’ll spit into your rum cup instead.” The other men howled with laughter. Nearly dropping their loads. A now red-faced Louis was incensed but didn’t say much more because Cardinal was everything he was not. Smarter, bigger, stronger, and meaner.
………………………
The years it seemed, for these voyageurs, went by too quickly. A now older Francois was bent over in pain. “I think this might be my last year, Pierre. My bones feel bad. I can barely kneel in this canoe any more. Maybe I’ll retire like Louis. Where is he anyway? I haven’t seen him for a few years now.” He looked around at some of the familiar, but older-looking faces. Now in their mid-thirties, they too were near their end, as canoe-men, barely able to keep up to the grueling pace and paddling endless days.
Blanchet, smelling as bad as ever, simply shook his head. “Gone.” He grimaced in pain, thinking too this was a game for younger men. Cardinal, as usual, only spat when hearing Francois’s question.
Then Blanchet, after a spell of pain, continued. “I heard he’s living at Fort Vermilion and is not doing so well. They say all he does is sit and smokes all day; and sings his songs.”
Pierre, no longer a paddler but now the expressman, piped up. “We’ll be there tomorrow. We’ll pay him a visit. I wonder if he still has that strange-looking tobacco pipe?”
The next day the brigade landed at Fort Vermilion. They scrambled up the steep, slippery bank falling and cursing, trying to balance their heavy loads. An unhappy Cardinal managed a few words. “Merde! Can’t they make a decent trail up this bank?” Then he spat.
A wheezing Pierre behind him, barely managed an answer between laboured breaths. “They make a trail every year, but every year the high waters take it and some of the bank with it.”
As they neared the fort, now perched precariously on the edge of the river bank, they noticed a frail-looking man sitting on a chair near the front gate. It was Louis. His eyes were staring at something far away. His thin, wispy hair blew in the wind. He barely noticed them. And as he sang, occasionally he stopped and clutched his head, as if in pain; then his stomach.
Louis still smoked his funny little pipe, looking at the sky and waving at some object that only he saw up there, constantly mumbling to himself. “Next time take me with you when you take the La Chasse-galerie back to Montreal. I promise, I’ll not swear or misbehave on the journey. Please, I need to go back to see my loves. All of them.” He then broke into a French-Canadian voyageur song, as if he was still on the river in his canoe:
“Riding along the road from Rochelle city, Riding along the road from Rochelle city, I met three girls and all of them were pretty. Pull on the oars as we glide along together. Pull on the oars as we glide along.”
The old voyageur managed a rather frail hacking laugh after finishing the verse. Then he started severely coughing, emitting a stream of greenish phlegm. Almost hitting Cardinal with it. He sucked some more on his odd little tobacco pipe, which now seemed to have gone out. But he just kept sucking. He continued to mumble and sing, never quite reaching the end of his song:
“I met three girls and all of them were pretty; By chance I chose the one who was the beauty….”
The men looked at one another, bewildered. One of the fort workers had joined them. “He’s like this most of the time now. His wife’s gone. He’s all alone. Never had children, much as he wanted to.”
The men moved past a vacant-eyed, mumbling Louis shaking their heads. Wondering what had happened to him. Thinking about what might happen to them. Was this their fate? After so many years of hardship? Laboring for a few who got rich off their sweat.
As Cardinal went by Louis, he was just about to send a green wad of tobacco juice towards the bumbling man’s shoes. “No. That’s not right. He’s one of us – forever a voyageur. He’s not well. Best to leave him alone.” Instead, he walked past Louis, patting him on the shoulder as he went by, and then on into the fort.
…………………………
Harry Reed, archaeologist for the Government of Alberta, and his team were excavating at the Fort Vermilion fur trade site. Occupied by both the North West (c.1798 -1821) and Hudson’s Bay (c.1821 – 1830) Companies, it was one of the oldest and best preserved sites in the middle Peace River region, Alberta, Canada.
Luke, one of his excavators, shouted. “Harry, come and look at this. What is it?” When Harry looked over, Luke was up to his chin in an old building cellar filled with debris. Harry walked over, curious as ever. There was always a surprise or two when he dug at this northern fur trade fort.
Luke handed him the small object. “Sure is heavy for something so small.” Then Harry looked at it closer and gasped. “No, it can’t be. I think this is a tobacco pipe.” But it was no ordinary tobacco pipe. He was certain it was made out of lead.
After looking at the object for some time Harry gave it back to Luke. “Congratulations. You’ve just found one of a kind. Believe it or not, this is an Iroquoian style tobacco pipe base, just missing the bowl. But, made out of lead.”
“Oh cool. But why are you looking so surprised and shocked, Harry? Its just an old pipe, right?”
” Right Luke. And lead is just a harmless metal, popular for pipe making.” Harry walked off without another word, leaving Luke scratching his head.
That evening Harry sat by the camp fire thinking about the strange lead tobacco pipe. He would visit a chemist, perhaps even a doctor, at the University of Alberta and ask the sixty-four dollar question: what happens to you, if you smoked tobacco in that pipe? For years on end. “I wonder what ever happened to its owner? Never mind. Probably died at an early age inhaling those fumes. And likely left no descendants behind to answer my question.”
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