The Vanished Beothuks

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Newfoundland/Labrador, land of the Beothuks

When I began the process of studying Newfoundland/Labrador, I expected a plethora of native peoples’ lore but found little to none. The Beothuks were a native peoples who have supposedly become extinct after thriving in the north-eastern province for over 2000 years.

Word has drifted down they were tall. They colored their black hair and arms in red ochre. Lighter skinned than expected, they were broad faced with flat noses. They also tinted their clothes with red ochre. Nomadic, the land provided their food. They were ingenious and lived well, with fences 30 miles long that penned in deer. Their steam baths with hot stones were covered with skins. 

They were there when the Vikings landed on L’anse Aux Meadows. Sabastian Cabot either briefly met them or saw them from a distance before being cast adrift by a mutinous crew in Hudson Bay to never be seen again. Columbus never got that far north so he never saw them.

By the 17^th century, they lived in the fringes of Newfoundland, away from all the settlements. After the summer fishermen left the area, it was said they would venture to the abandoned sites and take what they could, i.e., fishing lines, spoons and trinkets left behind but they were a shy people, never mingling with the newcomers. Even as they stayed hidden, they were still subjected to the European scourge of disease, which annihilated the majority of their tribe by the beginning of the 19^th century.

Beothuk Woman

Another source says their demise came from hostilities with another tribe, the Micmac, that settled in NL in the 18^th century. The French, tired of the hostilities, offered a bounty on every Beothuk head brought to them. The Micmac hunted the Beothuk to near extinction. By the first quarter of the 19^th century, they had died out. By 1827, not one Beothuk remained.

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Many thanks to:

Chappell, R.N., Edward, Lieut. Voyage of His Majesty’s Ship Rosamond to Newfoundland and the Southern Coast of Labrador, London 1818

http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/encyclopedia/Beothuks.htm

https://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/newfoundland/beothuk/

And Wikicommons, public domain.

Rialto Beach by Katherine Pym

  

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 One of the most astonishing vacations I’ve been on is the Washington Peninsula. A large expanse, it encompasses an area with a mountain range, rain forests, lakes and landmarks along the Pacific.

Dead trees on edge of rain forest leading to Rialto Beach

  
At Rialto Beach not far from LaPush is dramatic and beautiful, but something happened there. A whole line of trees are white, dead, as if swamped by ocean water.

Washington coast on a sunny day

 

Rialto beach area on a Cloudy Day, which is most days.

Rialto Beach

Whatever happened to the trees had to have been fairly recent, for they still stand like lone sentinels guarding the land.

The beach is filled with pebbles to rounded rocks, and very difficult to walk on for any length of time. Rock hunters comb the sand for orbicular jasper and agates.

 

Driftwood on the beaches of Washington

Huge driftwood litters the beach, which you can climb onto and sunbathe rather than the pebbled beach. Islands dot the shallows. It is really magnificent. 

For more, unusual reading, try Miri's Song, a story of Joshua & Magdala, a love story

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Many thanks to my memories, pictures, & Wikicommons, Public Domain

What Would I Change in Fly Away Snow Goose?

http://amzn.to/2jZPtIR

ASIN:   B0767HGYB6 

https://books2read.com/flyawaysnowgoose

This is a dangerous question to ask a depressive. Most of us, upon hearing it, freeze.  We know that if anything goes wrong within five miles of where we are standing, it will—somehow—be our fault. "What's wrong with my book???" You start with a small hours bout of 20-20 hindsight and go on from there 

So, I shall attack the assignment from another angle.  

I’m a ruminator, a.k.a. a s-l-o-w writer, which is not a good thing when you are supposed to be “creating content.” So the slowness leads me to: “My only regret about Fly away Snow Goose is that John and I didn’t have more time to learn and ponder.

Fish drying in the customary low humidity of NWT

We were writers on a deadline and sometimes one or the other of us would throw up our hands in despair. However, our deadline was nothing when compared with the deadline our characters faced.  Those four kids either had to find their tribe before winter comes or die. The responsibility for success or failure lies squarely upon the eldest, a pair of youngsters, who, after their escape from the residential school, face a peril-filled initiation into adulthood. 

Sometimes we, the writers, were scrambling; sometimes our characters were scrambling, but I can assure you they scrambled a lot harder than we did. Their journey takes them up rivers, through, across and around bogs, muskeg, pothole lakes, and into dark forests. They are always on the look out for dangerous animals--the primary one being white men who could turn them over to the authorities.

In the end, there’s not much I’d change about this now completed project. I got to know-- if only a little--the earth-wise Tlicho.  It has been a humbling experience for me to peek over the top of my cultural box and discover another persuasive world view. I’ve learned about the Prophet Erǝ́ya , also called Louis Ayah, of Great Bear Lake, and read his teachings. I’ve read about families named Tailbones, Crooked Hands, Simpson, Zoe, Chocolate, Norwegian and Lynx. I learned about Chief Jimmy Bruneau and about the far-sighted, strong willed Tlicho leader Monfwi. I've learned what this land means to the Athabascan people, how everything from rock and river to moose and man is connected to everything else, in a web which can never be undone.  I hope that this other "way of seeing" is brought to life in our story, and I'm truly glad that John has been along to make sure my feet stay on the Red Road.

It’s been inspiring —thanks to a free internet –to see images from the NWT taken by all kinds of people, some who live there and others who are gob-smacked visitors.  From these amazing pictures, it was a short head hop to standing upon their astounding dèè and looking up into the whispering glory of Aurora Borealis.  

Don’t know if I’ll ever get there, but the NWT is now definitely on my bucket list.

~~Juliet Waldron

The best link to find my historical novels at many popular online sites:

http://www.bookswelove.net/authors/waldron-juliet/