Aug 17, 1000, Ksi Gwinhat’al Valley, Near Alice Arm BC
Some of the open meadow around the lakes was marshy, but some was hard and clear enough for the mule to get up to a trot. The boys were covering ground quickly. Neither boy had a watch, but Magnus figured it was about recess time, or around 10 AM when they got hungry. They halted on the shore of the biggest lake so far, maybe 100 yards across and three times as long. In the shade of a big evergreen they ate the lunches Mrs. Evindsen had packed, finished their ginger beer, and filled the bottles up with creek water. The mule drank water and ate grass and shrubbery.
South of the lake they were back in the forest, and here they discovered a faint trail. It followed a level route, with a creek running beside them to their right and far below. Under the trees the air was cool.
“Zach, when we get to the river, where do we get help?” asked Magnus. It was the first thing he had really said all morning.
“Umm, I don’t know,” answered Zacharias. “They’re not my people. I’ve never been there.
Magnus had not asked Zacharias much about his life before Anyox, now he realized that he was embarrassed to not know this about his friend. “Not your people?” he asked.
“Me and my mom are Tsimshian. The people of the Nass River are Nisga’a.”
“But you’re all Indians…”
“Yeah, and the British and Germans are all Europeans.”
“OK… Are all your neighbours like the Germans?”
“Huh, I never thought of it like that,” said Zacharias. “I guess the Haida, for sure, the Nisga’a sometimes. But the Germans aren’t at war with everybody all the time either. It’s different now that the missionaries are here. But everybody has long memories.”
“Can you speak to Nisga’a?” asked Magnus.
“Pretty much, but they can tell who I am the first word I say. I think its like Norwegian and Swedish, or Danish.”
“Yeah, I can kind of understand those, but I tried to talk to an Icelander once, and I got a headache right away. Everyone can speak English now can’t they?”
“Depends how old they are, and if they want to.”
“If they want to?”
“Some people are proud, and they don’t like to have to speak someone else’s language in their own land.”
Magnus felt like someone had pulled away a curtain, and he was seeing things for the first time that were very close, but had remained invisible. The two boys retreated into their thoughts for a while. The trail took a dip, and then descended. After a few minutes it became clear that they were headed down out of the high mountains, although they could not see far beyond the next tree. They descended for half an hour, and saw a small lake off beside their path. They cut through the forest to reach it. The mule drank long and deep from the lake.
“Are you hungry?” asked Zacharias.
“A little, but that miner food is disgusting.” Magnus pantomimed a miner eating his can of beans and bully beef. “Nom. Nom. Nom.” The two boys cracked up laughing.
“I kinda like bully beef,” said Zacharias.
“Nom. Nom. Nom.” said Magnus.
They cracked up again.
“Are you going to open a tin?” asked Magnus.
“No way. I’m not that hungry.”
The boys rounded up the mule, and swung up on her again. The trail continued downhill. In another 20 minutes or so they entered a clearing. The clearing was swampy, like a small lake that had all filled in with silt. Around the edges were prolific salmonberry patches. Through the break in the trees the boys could see a towering wall of snowcapped mountains, including one with its own glacier. The sunlight was dazzling after all the time under the forest canopy.
“All those mountains must be on the other side of the river,” said Zacharias. “ I think we’re getting close.” The mule shied. Above the sound of the birds and bugs, there was another sound across the swamp. They could see the berry bushes shaking.
“I think that’s a bear,” whispered Magnus. The mule was snorting and stamping. A black head appeared over the berry bushes at the downhill end of the clearing.
“Yep. Don’t worry girl.” Magnus said, stroking the mule. “We’re going to leave right now.” He tried to use the reigns to get the mule to turn. Instead she reared up on her hind legs, dumping Magnus, Zacharias, and their saddle bags onto the wet ground. She ran back the way they came, and there was a powerful crashing through the underbrush behind her, a brownish, greyish blur in the shrubs. The mule galloped back into the trees and out of sight, and they could hear her hoof beats fading away for a while. What remained was a grunting, a sniffing, and then at the uphill side of the clearing, the upper body of an adult grizzly standing up out of the bushes. It started moving towards the boys. Zacharias picked up the bags of supplies and draped them over his shoulders.
There was one tall pine tree in the middle of the clearing. The grizzly sniffed at the boys, roared, and then charged.
“Run!” yelled Zacharias, but Magnus was already running.
Magnus was pretty fast at the school track meet. But he never ran as fast as this before. Zacharias was two steps behind him. They closed on the tree, but they could hear the grizzly close behind. A very ancient part of their brains told them to keep running rather than looking back. They were almost at the base of the tree when something black and furry pushed past Magnus.
A black bear yearling hit the base of the tree at a full run, turned ninety degrees and ran up the tree to the very top. Magnus was steps behind the bear. Later, he didn’t remember how he climbed the tree, but he sure did, twenty, then thirty feet in the air. When he looked back, Zacharias was one branch below him.
“Wow.” said Magnus, breathing hard. “Wow.”
The grizzly bear on the ground below them stood on its hind legs and roared. The black bear in the tree above them bawled. The top of the tree was bending over from the black bear’s weight. It was a stand off. Things stayed this way for far too long.
