I am surrounded by water. The trees stretch high above the shoreline. The tide, like clockwork, moves the trees’ reach closer twice a day, every day. The branches bow to the eternal, timeless movement of water, to “what once was” amidst the telling of old stories.
I am alone in my canoe.
This dream relic of mine is a gentle nudge from a “long-ago.” It smolders a pure element of this Down East place; a breathing ember that I am certain will remain here forever.
Well before the working boats holding fishermen and women — young and old, experienced and novice — ever floated, there was nothing. Only water. And then, there was a canoe.
I try to imagine what it was like when the water’s tide came and went without buoys bobbing on the cold surface. When there were no freighters carrying cargo along the horizon, no pleasure craft slicing circles or ferries carrying people from mainland to islands. I wonder how it looked, smelled, and what it sounded like.
I then think of that first canoe, a birchbark canoe. A canoe that anointed the water, and in its wake began telling a story. This Down East place is filled with stories if one takes the time to listen, to learn. Ask your question and the answer lies within the fabric of this place. Because the soul of a place never forgets.
The first peoples of this area, the Wabanaki, have answers to these questions. The “People of the Dawnland” are of four tribes — Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot. They have lived here for over 12,000 years. Their impact on both this place and its ways remain constant because of the stories they keep forever close amidst the lives they live today. Their culture lives within the present, offering sustenance to anyone willing to listen and to learn.
I remember the first time I paddled a canoe. I viewed it as essential for a true outdoor experience. In my younger days I read books about the explorers of past eras. The mode of backcountry travel back then was by foot or canoe, many times back and forth between the two. I learned that before the explorer there were others — indigenous people — who forged a way of life anew. They were the first example of ‘how it’s done.’
The Wabanaki were the first people here and their ways still survive today because of generations upon generations sharing both story and experience. The written word cannot compare to a ring of people gathered listening to an elder tell a story. Stories about their ancestors, their blood and their experiences.
Their stories of old ways are kept salient today by example, by experience. Their stories are of hunting, fishing, moving from one place to another, ceremony in both dance and song; people and nature and the love and respect for both in a place that provided. And it is about birchbark canoes.
Today, we tinker, we change, we get faster at everything and yet miss so much. We incessantly make alterations and changes for our “new and improved” life. There are not many originals in this world of ours today. Tweaked, poked and prodded, things are “improved” but don’t always make things better from what they once were.
Yesterday the canoe was a necessity, today not so much. Still, the indigenous stories being told are necessary. They are lessons of resilience — whether making trails through forest woods or on a river’s current, tending the barrens for its ripe fruit, spending time with family, sharing songs, teaching language or building and then paddling a canoe made by hand with materials provided by Mother Nature.
Anyone who spends time on the water today — in any type of craft — owes homage to that “original” work of art and ingenuity, the birch bark canoe. It is a touchstone of an indigenous way of life that remains relevant today amidst our ubiquitous need for more of everything. The canoe is a symbol that remains relevant because its story continues to be passed from old to young and with it, guides us all backwards to a true beginning.
I take another silent paddle-stroke through the water. The sun is just coming up and there along the shore I can see smoke. The campfire’s smoke lifts from the beach, its sparks not far behind are filled with words, embraced by laughter as a story chases darkness away. I take another stroke through the water and move backwards in time. Sunlight then touches the water to guide me home.
