Journey from Sheshatshiu to Nakanakau

The sun had just risen that crisp Monday morning late in August on the shores of Atatshi-uinipekᵘ(Lake Melville). Already the first frost had arrived, cold enough to drive the summer’s black flies back a bit, and to tinge the tamarack needles with a faint trace of gold. Friends and relatives came down to the beach as the canoes were loaded. Some of the Settler² men and women stood by, and the Hudson’s Bay Company³ manager at Sheshatshiu shook hands and said good bye.

Innu man, woman, four children and dog, in canoe disembarking at Sheshatshiu. 1933. Photo courtesy of the Rooms, Provincial Archives Division. Newfoundland and Labrador

“Iame, iame – Goodbye, goodbye, until next year, my friends,” he exclaimed in his broken Innu-aimun (Innu language). The men fired their guns into the air to signal their departure. 

Hardly any wind was blowing on Atatshi-uinipekᵘ that morning; the giant, tidal lake was a mirror before them. The bow of Shanut’s canoe carved through the water with ease, waves curling away across the lake as they advanced towards the distant shore. So far, no leaks had appeared in the freshly painted hull. Grandpa Mishen’s expertise at making canoes gave Shanut confidence in the sturdy craft. She knew it would protect them from rapids and strong winds until freeze-up later that fall. “One day, my sons will make canoes as sturdy as this,” she thought to herself.

Mishen had made two uta (canoes, a single canoe is ush) that summer, during the family’s stay at the trading post. He had many helpers including Shanut’s grandmother and some of the uncles. The grassy field above the beach at Sheshatshiu looked like a canoe factory since so many people were practising the ancient craft of building canoes that year.

Summer was a time for canoe-building and for Innu families from many parts of the territory to meet up with the missionary, Father Edward O’Brien⁴. Young lovers were married, and children born in the country during the year were baptized.

Old film footage of Innu people visiting the mission at Sheshatshiu and Davis Inlet taken by or for Monsignor Edward Joseph O’Brien between 1921 and 1946. Courtesy Roman Catholic Diocese of Grand Falls, Newfoundland and The Rooms, Provincial Archives Division

Canoe building. Sheshatshiu. 1963. Photo courtesy of Ray Webber and the Canadian Museum of History

That night the Pun family camped at the point at the mouth of Tshenuamiu-shipu.  Wood shavings and many old tent posts were everywhere to be seen as many Innu families had camped at this spot in previous years on their way to and from the interior. Sometimes, families spent the entire summer here, preferring to keep their distance from the hustle and bustle of the trading post and mission.

Innu family. Circa 1926-1937. IGA 1-12. Photo courtesy of The Rooms, Provincial Archives Division, Newfoundland and Labrador

Shanut slept like a baby on her fresh bed of fir boughs. The several weeks she’d spent at the post had meant too much leisure time, and she was a little out of shape for paddling.

“Nikatshitishun!  (I have sore muscles!)” she whispered to her sister, as they swapped stories about their secret romances over the summer.

In the morning, the entire family visited the graves of two Elders. Mishen and Aniet led a prayer for the deceased and everyone sang a hymn. Then they packed up their belongings, dismantled the tents and loaded up the canoes again. On the way down to the beach, Shanut’s father Pien called out to her.  “Apikushish, you are old enough to be kanishtamitakutshet (bowman) now. I want you to help your grandparents in their canoe.”

Most of the journey upstream was just plain hard work. Pien and the other men, as well as the older boys, poled the canoes along the shore by some of the worst rapids⁵. The women and children had to walk along the shore. Walking was not easy at times, as some of the shoreline was soft sand or littered with boulders, and the last of the black flies swarmed about their faces in the afternoon sun.

Baby Matiu toddled behind, holding his mother’s arm with one hand, and clutching his innikueu (doll) in the other. Grandmother Kanikuen had made the doll for him during the summer, and it still smelled vaguely of her pipe tobacco. Nothing could separate him from his innikueu, his most prized possession, especially since it reminded him so much of Grandma. She was spending the year with her eldest son at Mishikamau, in another part of the territory.

On the third day traveling up the river, calamity struck on a lengthy stretch of rapids on Tshenuamiu-shipu called Kapitatshuass. The day was cooler and a heavy mist of rain fell everywhere. The rocks along the shore were especially slippery. Without warning, Shanut’s feet slipped out from under her, and before she knew it, she had fallen into the bubbling rapids.

“Uitshikᵘ, uitshik (help, help),” she shrieked, as she could not swim. For more than a hundred metres she was hurtled downstream, her head bobbing up and down and her body smashing up against rocks. Luckily, she was swept into an eddy⁶ behind one of the rocks along the shore, where she could catch her breath at last.

Meanwhile, her brother, Shinipesht, had seen the accident, and had leapt out of his canoe to run along the shore after her.

“Apikushish,” he shouted, “hang on, don’t panic, I’m coming after you.” Within seconds, Shinipesht had arrived at the eddy and pulled Shanut out of the water with all his might.

After a couple of hours beside a blazing fire, some bannock and smoked trout, and a couple of cups of hot tea, Shanut was as good as new. And, everyone resumed the journey natimit (upstream⁷).

Charlie Unganna’s girls with their dolls. 1931. Donald Baxter MacMillan photo. Courtesy of the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Musuem and Arctic Studies Center, Bowdoin College

The group stopped at the junction of Tshenuamiu-shipu and Utshashumeku-shipiss for three days. Once the camp was set up, the men took off into the woods to find a couple of tall, straight minaikᵘ⁸ (white spruce). Within a couple of hours, using only their axes and mukutakan  (crooked knife), they had carved two uashuakanashk^u (leisters) that they would use to spear salmon that lingered in the pools along the river.

The evening was calm and clear, and with birch bark torches blazing, the men paddled out into the salmon pools to try their luck at fishing. Before much time had passed, they had several big salmon flapping about in the bottom of their canoes.

Woman smoking and drying salmon. 1930. Courtesy of The Rooms, Provincial Archives Division, Newfoundland and Labrador

The next day, the women smoked and dried the salmon so that it could be eaten on the journey further inland, and their precious flour⁹ could be saved for times of greater need.

Throughout their stay at the camp, the children split firewood and checked the rabbit snares. Pashin took the dog Tshimitshikan hunting in the afternoon and killed more than a dozen spruce grouse.

Adeline Pasteen  splitting wood. 1963. Photo by Hans Hvide Bang. Courtesy of Erik Sandberg Ingstad, Ingstad Archives and the Norwegian National Library

Basil Nuna, hunter in the making, Sheshatshiu. 1963. Photo courtesy of Ray Webber and the Canadian Museum of History

The travel route to the height of land took the group up Utshashumeku-shipiss to Tshishkuepeu-nipi and Pepaukamau.  Nekanakau, where the family intended to spend the rest of the fall hunting and trapping, was only a day’s paddle away from Pepaukamau. Both lakes are part of a chain of lakes at the headwaters of Nutapinuan-shipu that empties into the Atlantic Ocean far to the east.

By the end of October, the small ponds were frozen and only a few leathery brown leaves clung to the ushkuai (birch trees) and atushpi (alders). A couple centimetres of fresh snow lay on the ground, almost deep enough to need snowshoes.

Pien, Mishen and the other men took advantage of the light snow cover to search out some good birch trees with which to make ashamatsh (snowshoes). They hoped to kill caribou before long, and they would need the caribou hides for lacing to fill or repair snowshoes. Anishen, Aniet and the other woman at the camp would then have to tan the caribou hides and cut them into assiminiapi (babiche)¹⁰ for the lacing.

Mishen sharpened his axe so that he could make thin planks from a tall uatshinakan (tamarack) he found at the edge of a marsh. The planks would be used to make a new shumin-utapanashk^u (toboggan).

Several days later, just before sunset, Pashin burst into Shanut’s tent where she was busy scraping the flesh from the pelt of an amishk^u  (beaver).

“My cousin,” he exclaimed, a great smile of pride on his face. “I killed my first caribou today, at the ushakatikᵘ¹¹ near Mishtashini. I got it with only one bullet.”

Shinipesht, Pien and Mishen arrived at the camp quick on Pashin’s heels. Each of them carried a heavy load of atiku-uiash (caribou meat) in his backpack.  “Lots of meat to carry us through the fall,” said Pien, wiping the sweat from his forehead, “and we’ve left eight caribou on teshipitakan¹² (scaffolds) back in the marsh. We’ll go back tomorrow to get them.”

For most of the next week, all the women and girls at the camp were busy drying caribou meat and pounding it into niuekanat (powdered dried caribou meat) with a mitunishan (pestle). The flesh and fur had to be scraped off of the caribou hides with a mitshikun (scraper) and pishkuatshikan (beaming tool). Shanut knelt patiently beside her grandmother as she worked the fur off one of the hides.

Pinamen fleshing a caribou skin. 1928. The second Rawson-Macmillan Subarctic Expedition. Courtesy of Field Museum of Natural History (Anthropology). CSA61465c

Maniaten Penashue lacing snowshoes at a nutshimit camp in the Kameshketkatinau-nipi region. 1989. Photo courtesy of Camille Fouillard

“Granddaughter, I learned how to do this from my own grandmother, and it is she who gave me this pishkuatshikan.  I can’t remember how many caribou hides I’ve cleaned with this tool,” she said. “One day, it will be my gift to you.”

All of the caribou leg bones had been set aside carefully on the large teshipitakan in the centre of the camp, to keep them away from the dogs. The Caribou Master, Kanipinikassikueu, must be shown respect¹³ at all times through the proper treatment of the caribou bones, meat and fat.

Early one morning, Mishen, as utshimau-ushkan¹⁴, gathered all the bones together carefully on a large canvas sheet on the floor of his tent. Here, he spent the entire morning crushing the leg bones with a mitunishan. The tender white marrow and the small pieces of crushed bone all went into a large pot of boiling water on the stove. He was preparing for a special feast.

At one point, all the young people gathered in the tent. “I am being careful not to waste any of the marrow,” Mishen told them. “However, if any piece of marrow, bone, or meat falls on the ground, I put it in the stove immediately out of respect for Kanipinikassikueu.”

Later in the day, Mishen took the boiling broth off the stove. He added a cupful of snow to the broth to cool it and to get the atikᵘ-pimi (fat) from the bone marrow to solidify at the top. Using a mishtiku-emikuan (ladle), he scooped the fat from the surface and pressed it into wax-like cakes.

“Tonight we will have Makushan¹⁵“, he smiled. “We will eat the atikᵘ-pimi and caribou meat that Kanipinikassikueu has given us. I will drum, and everyone who can will dance.”

And that is what happened. A great feast was held, and everyone rejoiced.

Unkueu crushing bones for Makushan. 1928. The second Rawson-Macmillan Subarctic Expedition. Courtesy of Field Museum of Natural History (Anthropology). CSA61682c

Glossary