He picked up a pile of student papers. “It’s everywhere. Look here.” He passed her a handwritten essay.
Belle squinted as she read and gave a derisory whistle. “My God, it’s totally incoherent and all over the page, too. Did the writer get a bad mushroom? Surely you don’t have to put up with this?”
“The university has to be very careful, Belle. I don’t dare accuse the student of taking drugs. Unless he causes a row in class, he’s not considered a problem.” He paused at her expression. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. Most of our students wouldn’t touch the stuff. Then again, last Christmas two freshmen were arrested bringing back cocaine from the islands. Donkeys, are they called?” His eyebrows rose cautiously over the sense of his usage.
Belle laughed. “Don’t talk the talk, my man. It’s mules you mean.”
He looked embarrassed, then coughed. “Yes, well, they seem like asses to me, if you’ll pardon the pun. Poor fools were promised a free trip and a few thousand dollars to hide the bags inside a jar of cored pineapple. Pretty stupid, eh?”
Belle couldn’t help grinning. “Would have made an unbelievable upside down cake. But to trade stories, what about the three guys who swallowed condoms of coke before boarding a plane from Acapulco to Toronto. Forgot their Boy Scout knot lessons, because they all collapsed at takeoff.”
He flicked his hand over a bust of Shakespeare. “Classical poetic justice, wouldn’t you agree?”
“You mean like ‘hoist with your own petard’? My favourite kind of story. The biter bit and all that.”
“Shakespeare is so popular in Germany that we would claim him as our own if we could.”
A knock at the door introduced a huge native man with thick braids down his back. He wore a heavy hand-knit wool sweater under his parka and untied construction boots like many students. “Nearly ready, Franz?” he asked, glancing over at Belle with a shy smile.
“Come and meet Belle Palmer. She lives on Wapiti and knows the park area well.” The man’s large hand wrapped around Belle’s like a warm heating pad. “William Redwing. He teaches Ojibwa in our new First Nations Studies Program. In the summer he takes groups low impact camping.”
William’s eyes crinkled. “My people have been doing it for thousands of years without leaving any footprints. How much more low impact can you go?”
“It just makes me sick to see what people leave around at campsites. Styrofoam plates and broken beer bottles,” Belle said. “And how can archaeological sites be protected?”
“Exactly. That is our fear. We have verified that a burial ground dating from the mid-eighteenth century lies within the boundaries. Will somebody dig it up as an exhibit? Why not display Sir John A. Macdonald or René Lévesque? These artifacts record our history. Look at this beauty,” he added as he lifted a dark gray rock from Franz’s shelf.
“A tool?” asked Belle. The object was about eight inches long, sloped and chipped at one end.
“Hand axe is our guess,” William explained. “Somewhere around 1500 A.D. Franz and I found it on the North River, just below the small falls. Under the pines the ground is as soft as a cushion.”
“I know that spot well,” Belle said, closing her eyes in reflection. “The flat outcrop comes down to the water for bathing, and the blueberries make great cobbler if you have bannock mix.”
“A good campsite, a good tool, they don’t change over the centuries,” William added, turning the rock slowly. “Such a practical feel. See how it fits the thumb perfectly? Could have been used for skinning.”
“I’m really worried about the pictographs at the narrows. They’re fading with each year,” Belle continued.
“It’s sad, but little can protect that fragile art short of erecting a dome to prevent weather damage like with the Peterborough petroglyphs. If you want to see an unspoiled site, Belle, go to Elliot Lake,” William said. “Now that the mines have closed, there is water access to a very holy place, an overhang on Quirke Lake. The elders took the young warriors there on their way berry-hunting and left them on the ledge for their dream time. Several days later the elders returned with their fruit to hear the stories, see the pictures and welcome the new men into the tribe.”
Belle admired a birchbark box on Franz’s shelf, its intricate pattern woven with porcupine quills. “What meticulous quillwork. I’ve often been tempted to buy smaller pieces at the craft stores north of the Sault. Out of my price range, unfortunately.”
“I can tell you that the labour is considerable, and what tiny portion goes to the artist is a moot point,” William said. “As children, my sister and I were in charge of finding quills. ‘Road kill!’ she’d yell, and off we would run. Then my grandmother sipped tea under a kerosene lamp until dawn sorting the quills into sizes and colours. Some birch baskets can boil water.” His confident expression challenged her.
“Now you’re kidding. That’s impossible,” Belle said.
William explained the careful seaming, the folds and fastening to prevent leaks. “Suspend the pot over smouldering coals, and allow no contact with a flame. Be patient, and tea can be brewed.”
Belle cocked her head at Franz, who agreed. “But it’s scientific, Belle. The water cools the bark from inside. And remember that water boils at 100° C, about half the ignition temperature for paper.”
At the noon chime, Franz picked up his papers and put his hand on the big man’s shoulder. “Let me get a few people down the hall. William, you collect the troops. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Last minute details. Make yourself at home, Belle.”
She dropped her pile of reviews onto the desk and plopped into an old oak armchair, vintage university. Shelves of books lined the walls, mainly anthropological. Indians of Early Ontario, North American Aboriginals, Man Corn: Cannibalism and Violence in the Prehistoric American Southwest. Franz had chosen the right specialty at the right time. New government money was flowing to Native Studies programs: law, social work, history and mythology. A dusty 286 computer sat on a smaller desk, complete with a cheap dot matrix printer. Lucky man if he had free Internet access, she thought. Blondi’s colour photo had a place of honour, her younger eyes clear and deep. Otherwise all was typical professorial clutter and piles of student efforts.
When Franz returned, she grabbed her papers. On the way to the rally, they detoured to Belle’s van to deposit her things. Several hundred people were gathered in front of the university. Young and old, miners and doctors, waitresses and bookkeepers, and students and teachers joined hands to preserve the wilderness for different reasons: clean water, quiet, respect for wildlife or the priceless value of history. A few nervous campus police stood around, passing an occasional remark to each other and cultivating serious expressions. Signs read “Save the Big Trees”, “New Park. Not!”, “Keep Wapiti Free” and in front of a group quietly drumming, “Sacred Trust: the Pictographs”. The smell of burning sweetgrass brought summer to the air. Melanie waved and hoisted her placard: “Trees Not Tourists”.
“Take one, Belle. We have plenty.”
The earnest spectacle reminded Belle of her University of Toronto days, when students had taken umbrage that an anti-Vietnamese war speaker had not been allowed on campus. Back then, the students had spent twenty-four hours sitting in at the Administration Building, quietly studying and sharing tuna sandwiches. She recalled her
