Mattie Mitchell (2 page)

For two hours the American fished the deep, dark water of the
pool without any success, although the salmon frequently jumped
all around him. He had changed his fly hooks several times, but
it was all in vain. He just couldn't get the hang of catching an
Atlantic salmon. Walking a little farther upstream and pulling his
hat from his head, he removed another fly hook from the felt
band that ran around the quiff. He was tying the fly to the fine
leader when he saw it.

He bent his head down and placed the end of the barrel knot
between his teeth. Turning his head sideways, he bit down and
severed the line. A sparkle of yellow shone up through the shallow
water at his feet. At first Stringer thought it was the sunlight on
the water surface. More curious than anything, he bent down to
investigate. With his rod held in the crook of his left arm, he
reached into the water with his right hand.

Stringer was surprised to feel metal. He pulled, and it came free
from the gravelly bottom. There came a rattle of sound muffled
by the water. What he pulled from the river bottom appeared to
be a small metal can with only the upper edge remaining. Only
rusted shards remained of the container's sides and nothing of the
bottom part. Looking down into the water, the yellow sparkle still
remained. Stringer discarded the rusted can and reached into the
water again. When he brought his hand out of the water, it was
filled with rocks that glittered with gold flakes. When Stringer's
shouts brought his guide to his side, the young Mi'kmaq said
with excitement, “You have found Mattie's kettle o' gold!”

For days after, the story of the golden rocks was on everyone's
lips. It even made the local media. Many people still remembered
the tale of Mattie's kettle of gold. Several hurried expeditions
travelled up the river to find more of the precious metal, but none
was found.

ANOTHER STORY INVOLVING MATTIE
and a river is that of the
“duckish water.” It shows the wit and humour of the man.

For several days Mattie had been walking upstream from the
coast, tending his autumn traps. Early each morning, whenever
he approached one deep, muddy cove in particular, away from the
main current—formed by one of the river's many back eddies—
he would disturb a small flock of ducks. At his approach, the
ducks always battered away upriver and squawked in protest.

One day Mattie was asked to take two English sportsmen
hunting. The two hunters had been told that Mattie knew all
there was to know about fish and birds. Mattie had overheard the
conversation and as usual made no comment.

The river valley where he always saw the ducks was easy
going for the most part. It also happened to fall in the same
general direction he wanted to take the two hunters. On the first
morning out with the two Englishmen, Mattie stopped 200 feet
or so before the spot where he expected to see the ducks. He
approached the cool river water and bent down to take a drink.
Sitting back with his mouth full, he rinsed the water back and
forth several times before swallowing. Slowly and deliberately,
he cupped his hand into the stream again and sucked the water
through his lips, giving his two companions the impression that
he was deep in thought over something. Apparently satisfied,
he spat the water out of his mouth and announced to no one in
particular that the water “taste duckish, maybe.”

One of the sportsmen stood over him asked, “Whatever do
you mean, my good fellow?”

“The water taste like duck. Black ones, maybe. Dey not far
upriver. Round next ben', maybe,” Mattie said with a straight face.

The two men turned away from Mattie and mumbled
something about crazy natives. When they rounded the next bend
in the river, sure enough, up flew the small flock of ducks, much
to the delight of a smiling Mattie and the chagrin of the English
hunters. As the ducks flew away without one shot fired at them,
Mattie heard one of the men exclaim, “By jove! Blacks, too!”

THE TALES OF MATTIE MITCHELL
'
S
exploits—all of them
adventurous—told by the men who visited the house of John
Mitchell, Marie's father, seemed endless. And always the pretty,
black-haired girl with the dark eyes listened and remembered.

MATTIE WENT ON ONE OF THE LAST
of his adventures in 1910.
He wasn't searching for natural treasures but for something quite
different: pirate treasure.

From the sixteenth century the eastern shores of the Americas
were a mecca for pirates. The “new” world offered fresh
opportunities for those who dared to take their fortune rather than
earn it. Today their names roll off the tongue of every schoolboy.
They are all infamous. Edward Teach, or Blackbeard, as the world
knew him, plundered his nefarious way all along the American
coast of colonies. Black Bart and Captain Kidd were men whose
very names brought dread to every honest captain. Henry Morgan
was a Welshman who razed the city of Panama and terrorized the
West Indies. He held command of an entire ocean for a time.
They were all sea thieves from the past. But there was one other
pirate whose daring outshone them all—Peter Easton.

From his base in Newfoundland, Easton sailed as far west as
the Barbary Coast of northwest Africa. He commanded a crew of
thousands in as many as forty ships. Many of his crewmen were
volunteers, but it is believed that he had taken the vast majority
aboard his ships by force. He was the scourge of John Guy, who
had established the first English colony in Newfoundland. By
1610, Easton was considered the most powerful pirate in the
western hemisphere.

Easton would steal a shipload of salted-down fish headed
from Newfoundland to England just as soon as he would take a
ship laden with rum and spices from the Indies. Stolen doubloons
and pieces of eight from Spain, and beaver pelts from English
merchants all meant the same to Peter Easton—money. Several
countries on either side of the Atlantic followed and hounded the
much-feared corsair, but he was never captured.

It was said that Easton hid some of his ill-gotten wealth in
several places around the Newfoundland coast. One such place
was reported to be the small Shell Bird Island, just upstream from
the wide mouth of the Humber River. Mattie Mitchell had heard
all of these white man stories. He had passed Shell Bird Island
many times over the course of his lifetime. Once, he stopped
there and explored the place, but found nothing.

Another place Easton had supposedly hidden treasure was
on another island, St. John Island, on the Newfoundland side
of the Strait of Belle Isle. Local legend tells of a pirate ship that
ran aground near the island while seeking shelter from a fierce
storm that tore up the strait. Fearing their ship would founder,
the pirates removed chests of gold coins and precious jewels
from the tossing vessel and hid them on the island, well above
the high-water mark. The storm abated without causing any
significant damage to their ship, and the pirates hurried to catch
the high tide and sailed away from the land. They had scratched
an arrow into a boulder to mark the location of the treasure, for
which they would return. The arrow and the boulder were visible
only at very low tide. According to the legend, the pirates were
besieged by another, more violent storm. The ship and all hands
were lost.

Mattie Mitchell knew St. John Island very well. It was a part
of his hunting grounds. He had erected a small shelter there. He
had also been there many times at the request of people hoping
to recover the pirate treasure. Those who paid the small fee for
his services hoped the old woodsman's eyes would reveal what
so many others had failed to see. But Mattie could find no trace
of the treasure. Eventually, he refused to take any more fortune
seekers there again. Like everyone else, he figured the pirates and
their gold were a myth.

Then, one cold winter's day near the end of 1910, while
travelling along his trapline far inland from his home in Bonne
Bay, he met an old man who had a map to the pirate gold.

Mattie was accompanied by one of his wife's relatives. The
young boy from the Webb family was learning the ways of the
wild from the best of hunters and trappers. The short winter day
was late and the sun had gone. Night was near, and there was no
warmth upon the land. Suddenly, across their trail, an old man
staggered and abruptly fell. Mattie and his young companion half
dragged, half carried the emaciated man to their camp, which
fortunately was nearby.

Mattie fed the man with hot caribou broth and, as he grew
stronger, caribou meat. He laid the old man in his own warm
bunk and covered him, where he slept on his back without stirring
for twelve hours. The man's hair was wild and snow white.
He was balding in front. His exposed brown scalp furrowed a
path through a patch of unruly long hair that fell to his narrow
shoulders, so that the man's face appeared to be staring out of a
tangled bush. He looked to be very old, but the energy behind his
bright blue eyes contradicted his age.

For several days Mattie and the young boy nursed their patient
back to health. In all that time they never once asked him how he
had come to be in these northern woods. The man had tremendous
resilience; he soon recovered and appeared to be strong enough to
travel. When Mattie invited him to accompany them to the coast,
he very politely declined. The stranger thanked his two rescuers,
but he said he would be all right now and prepared to leave.

Standing in the dim light of the small cabin, the old man
produced a faded map. He explained to Mattie that if he followed
the map precisely he would find enough gold to provide not only
for him, but his entire family for the rest of their lives. The map
revealed the location of the pirate treasure of St. John Island. The
man handed Mattie the map, shook hands with him and Webb,
and wished them a very Merry Christmas before walking out the
door and disappearing down the snowy trail.

The very next year, Mattie and a friend made their way up the
Northern Peninsula to Eddies Cove. Tucked safely inside his pack
in a waterproof satchel was the treasure map given to him by the
old man of the hills. Upon reaching the small village of Eddies
Cove late in the evening, Mattie finally persuaded Joe Offrey to
take him and his companion across to St. John Island. They had
enough supplies for an extended stay. This time Mattie—armed
with the old man's map—figured he would find the fabled pirate
treasure.

Using the old man's yellowed map, Mattie found, at low tide,
a small arrow etched into a boulder. He found other marks, but
none of them were easy to find. It took a keen and very observant
eye to follow the aged map.