SAILING THE “PIRATE”
A few days later with a gentle easterly breeze Ganawa and his white
sons sailed for Michipicoten Island with their bark canoe in tow. Bruce
handled the sail, Ray steered, and Ganawa used his paddle.
Ganawa’s heart nearly failed him when he found how strongly the wind
blew after they had cleared the sheltered bay. The sky was almost
cloudless, and a few white gulls lazily accompanied the travellers as
if they were curious about the strange craft that had appeared on their
own blue sea. As Ray watched them gracefully sailing around the boat,
he wondered very much how they could sail up and down, back and forth
without any apparent motion of their wings.
The faster the boat sailed, the harder Ganawa paddled, for he knew only
too well how quickly a breeze on Lake Superior may change to a
dangerous gale. In fact when the sailors came abreast of the east end
of the island, the spray began to fly over the stern, and Ganawa
applied his short quick strokes faster than ever. The distance from the
mouth of the river to Montreal Harbor is close to fifty miles, but the
pirate boat sailed the course in about six hours. Bruce furled his sail
and rowed the Pirate, as Ray had named the boat, into Quebec Harbor
soon after the sun had passed the noon line.
All three of the sailors were in high spirits after their successful
trip and, after enjoying a hearty meal, and setting up their camp, they
lost no time exploring the harbor and a part of the island. They found
no signs of caribou or moose on the island, but the snowshoe rabbits,
now in their summer pelage, were extremely abundant. When the
travellers discovered a grove of good-sized sugar-maples, Ray regretted
that they had not camped on the island in April or early in May, when
the sap was running, for he was very fond of maple syrup and maple
sugar.
They spent two days exploring a number of small coves and bays on the
south side of the island while the open lake was too rough for their
boat. Bruce and Ray had great fun catching both lake and brook trout,
and Tawny caught a big rabbit, but what they desired most they did not
find. They discovered no message anywhere from Jack Dutton. There were
plenty of signs that the miners of Alexander Henry and other white men
had camped on the island at Montreal Harbor, but the ax-mark of Jack
Dutton they could not find.
Ganawa also looked carefully for signs of Indians and especially for
signs of Hamogeesik, but he found none. As far as the three explorers
could tell, there were no other human beings on the island.
However, the white lads, as well as Ganawa, were by this time fully
determined to reach the Island of Yellow Sands, which is now called
Caribou Island. Ganawa had never been there, but he knew that it lay
six leagues straight south of Quebec Harbor. On very clear days the
island is visible from high points on Michipicoten, but there is nearly
always a little haze over the water and the three sailors, on a day
when there was a gentle breeze from the north, set out for an island
which was not visible and which neither of them had ever seen.
On this trip the wind did not increase, but after they had sailed a few
miles, the sail dropped on the mast and the Pirate lay becalmed on the
glassy swell of a lake that seemed the most peaceful of all waters in
the world. Rowing a boat on Lake Superior out of sight of land gives
one the feeling of being lost at sea. They rowed one hour, they rowed
two hours, and now the thickening haze made it impossible for them to
see either Michipicoten in their rear or Caribou Island ahead of them.
Bruce pulled the oars with all his strength, Ray paddled, and Ganawa
used his paddle in the stern.
“Bruce, what are we going to do if a fog catches us?” asked Ray, for he
had noticed that the haze was getting thicker and the sun was not as
bright as it had been in the morning.
“Better paddle, and stop asking foolish questions,” Bruce replied
curtly. And Ray concluded that Bruce was worried as much as he was. It
seemed to Ray that they had been rowing and paddling many hours, when
at last a low black patch hove in sight directly ahead of them. “Yellow
Sands! Yellow Sands!” Ray called out. “Thank God, we are not lost!”
The Island of Yellow Sands, or Caribou Island, is a bit of ancient rock
left in the middle of the eastern part of Lake Superior. It lies just
north of the International boundary, and it is uninhabited and seldom
visited even to this day. But there is a lighthouse built on an islet
just south of Caribou, and on this islet the lighthouse-keeper lives
during the season of navigation from May till November. While lying
almost in the path of steamboat lines between Lake Superior ports and
the “Soo” canals, Caribou Island still remains in its ancient solitude.
Very rarely do any people or any boats except lighthouse-tenders visit
the island.
If one would feel strongly the beat of the great northward and
southward surging waves of migrating birds, he could not do better than
spend a season with the lighthouse-keeper of Caribou Island, and some
day the island may become as famous in this respect as the island of
Helgoland in the mouth of the Elbe. At the time of our story there were
no lighthouses on the whole of Lake Superior.
Caribou Island is about three miles long from north to south and about
a mile wide from east to west. Its eastern shore runs almost straight,
the western is more broken, but there is no natural harbor on the
island.
Ganawa and his boys steered for a hill, about a hundred feet high, in
the southeastern part of the island, and they rowed and paddled with
all their might, for the haze was gradually changing to the dreaded
Lake Superior fog. For a little while the top of the hill remained
visible, while the near-by shore was lost in the fog. By this time the
sailors had turned the southeastern point of the island, and they could
hear the white-throats and thrushes sing in the woods of the island,
although for a few minutes they could see only the gray fog around
them. But guided by the song of a white-throat, as by the whistle of an
invisible pilot, they carefully used oars and paddle until the bow of
the Pirate grounded on the reddish-yellow sand of the island. Then they
laid down three short birch logs in front of the boat and using the
logs as rollers, they pulled the heavy boat up on land, and secured
their canoe, while each man silently offered a prayer of thanks to Him
Who had delivered them from the night of the fog and the perils of the
sea.