Newfoundland Stories (9 page)

ON GANDER LAKE

A
t six o'clock, sufficient light from the mid-March sun still filtered through the treetops to permit an unobstructed passage through the woods. The unseasonable warmth of the day showed no sign of abating, and the long shadows cast by the radiant western horizon lent a surreal touch of serenity to the waning afternoon hours. The boughs of the spruce, pine, and fir trees dripped the last remnants of the ice and snow that had encased them only that very morning, and tiny rivulets of water, freed after months of icy confinement, cut trenches in every direction. The gentle breeze that drifted softly from the southwest held the promise of even better things to come. Yet, despite the beauty of the moment, the surrounding countryside still lay dormant under a blanket of white as far as the eye could see, and Gander Lake remained frozen along its entire length and breadth, and would not thaw for weeks to come.

A heavily laden figure emerged from the forest and paused at the edge of the woods. He cautiously surveyed his surroundings, a habit bred from a lifetime of wilderness living. The monster of a black dog at his side did likewise, sniffing the air in every direction. Satisfied by what he saw, the man covered the short distance to the beach and propped his long-gun up against one of the boulders that lined the shore of the lake. He removed his snowshoes, traps, and backpack and deposited them on the ground. Rapping the snowshoes sharply against each other to dislodge the bits of ice and snow that clogged the frames and the rawhide webbing, he resisted the urge to hurl them into the distance. The trek through the woods had not been easy. The early morning hours had been relatively trouble-free and he had made good progress. The rising temperature and softening snow, however, had gradually rendered the snowshoes useless until he eventually abandoned them entirely, preferring to sink to his knees with virtually every step rather than put up with the frustration of having to stop every few yards to clean away the layers of sticky mush that accumulated and stuck to them like glue. At one point he had considered jettisoning the load he was carrying on his back and returning later to retrieve it, but then decided against it, opting instead to try to ignore the irritation and proceed doggedly onward as best he could.

The burly frame and brute strength of the man were evident even under the large, filthy fur coat he wore, and his fluid movements bespoke a creature acutely attuned to the environment in which he existed. With his coat and cap now removed, the sweat of his exertion dampened his dirty woollen undershirt, and plastered his black oily hair to the sides of his head. Dripping, stinging water forced him to wipe his brow and eyes every few minutes. He intended to take just a short spell before continuing onward to his cabin a half mile away on the northwestern corner of the lake.

The dog, vigilant while relaxing, bore an uncanny resemblance to its master. Even in repose, its sheer size and the muscles that rippled under its fur were evidence of its primeval strength and power. Its yellow eyes suggested more than a hint of wolf in its bloodline and gave it an aura that bordered on menacing. Rough and filthy like its master who had found it and reared it from a pup, the animal brooded with a sinister presence. It was a beast no man would ever wish to encounter if alone and unarmed. The dog was now oblivious to the oozing wounds suffered on its shoulder and flank a day or two earlier. Its licking had already congealed the affected areas somewhat and stemmed the flow of blood, and that was good enough for now. Time would do the rest.

The man was tired, bone weary from twelve hours of hard slogging. The wet clothes that clung to his sweat-covered body had already begun to chill, despite the warm weather. Although he had eaten that morning, he was now ravenous again. More than anything else, he wanted his pipe, to experience the soothing pleasantness of the smoke as it filled his lungs. For a brief moment, he was tempted to spread his coat out on the frozen ground and lie down on it, and just let himself drift off as he had sometimes done in the past. The last time he had done that, though, he had awakened shivering violently and had been forced to spend the next three days on the broad of his back in his cabin while chills and fevers alternately racked his body. He had vowed that he would never do that again.

In the end, it was his craving for tobacco that prompted him to go on. He had smoked the last of his that morning. Before leaving to run his trap-line three days earlier, he had carefully rationed out the amount he estimated he would need while he was away, and had spared it along with great prudence and self-discipline, denying the urge to light up until he could stand it no longer. But now his tobacco pouch was empty. Just a short distance away lay the last of the hoard he had purchased in Twillingate the previous fall. It was hidden securely under the floorboards of his cabin, safe from any prowler who might happen by. He knew that the first thing he would do when he got home was to light up and have a good smoke.

The circuit of his trap-line, totalling more than ten miles in distance, had been rewarding, much better than he had expected. The weather had been good and the sleek pelts of the pine marten, foxes, muskrats, and otters he had found in his snares and metal traps were of prime quality. They would undoubtedly fetch top dollar when he brought them to Twillingate in May. In the meantime he would leave them safely cached along his trap-line until it was time to retrieve them for market.

During the three-day trek, he and the dog had gorged themselves on the rich dark meat of the skinned carcasses until they were both sated, unable to cram in another mouthful. Afterward, they rested blissfully for a few hours until their bloated and lethargic bodies summoned up enough energy to carry on again.

The only sore point of the trip had been the fact that he had found six of his metal traps in disrepair. The jaws of two of them were rusted together so badly he could not pry them open, even using the barrel of his long-gun as a lever, so he discarded them on the spot. The other four he deemed salvageable. An application of animal fat and oil, along with some elbow grease, would restore their usefulness, and he decided to bring these traps home with him. His traps, some of which were of ancient vintage, were his means of livelihood and he intended to extract the maximum use from them.

Reshouldering his backpack, snowshoes, and traps, he resumed his homeward journey, knowing he would now have to cover the remaining distance in the rapidly gathering darkness. His route lay across the northwestern corner of the lake, a path he had trodden so many times since the lake had frozen over last fall that his footprints forged a line in the ice straight to his cabin door. To follow the shoreline would entail twice the distance, and in the soft snow, would take him that much longer. In any case, the ice of the lake was still firm enough to bear his considerable weight, and would remain so well into April.

The dog, as anxious as its master to reach the comforts of the cabin, paced, never far from the man's side. No overt communication of any kind passed between them, yet the bond and understanding between man and beast were unmistakable. They were partners, relying on each other for companionship and protection.

Halfway to his destination, the man stopped to rest again for a few minutes. His legs were beginning to cramp from the long hours of hard walking, and he stooped slightly to rub them to restore circulation. This time he did not bother to remove the load from his back. He wasn't planning to stop very long.

The loud low explosions that frequently reverberated across the ice caused him no concern. Neither did the long jagged crack lines that marked the ice surface in numerous places. They simply spelled the beginning of spring thaw as the many layers of ice that covered the lake to a depth of several feet in some areas grounded and grated against each other below the frigid surface. The first real indication that the ice was becoming unsafe would be the appearance of open pools of water along the shoreline. None of these were yet visible. The other potential peril, soft areas caused by shifting undercurrents, underground springs, and warm spots in the lake's depths, were usually identifiable by a discolouring of the ice in those particular areas. The man had not noted any of these yet this year.

The discomfort of his legs assuaged somewhat, he started out again. By now, night had descended in full, and the darkness rendered his progress a little more difficult, although he knew his way across the frozen lake by heart. The dog, meandering ahead, knew instinctively that he was now charged with some of the responsibility for getting his master and himself safely home.

The man had advanced no more than a dozen paces when he heard the dog growl, and knew instantly that something was amiss. When the growls became whines and sharp yips, he immediately turned back, implicitly placing his trust in the animal's instincts. Clearly, some danger lay ahead. He would have to retrace his steps and approach the cabin from a different direction.

But it was too late. He felt the ice open beneath him, and even as he tried to straddle the danger area, he felt himself falling. Suddenly up to his waist in the shockingly frigid water, he clung to the edge of the ice, trying frantically to pull himself up. He hung there for several seconds, and then, to his disbelief, the ice failed under his weight and he plunged below the surface. He struggled upward but the load on his back kept pulling him down. He knew that his only chance of survival was to remove it. He desperately tried to dislodge the traps securely tied across his shoulders.

To his horror, the rope was snagged, and the backpack, metal traps, and snowshoes were all entangled with each other. He tried to shuck out of his fur coat, but the same rope bound it too tightly. He was trapped and running out of time. His lungs were bursting and he was forced to exhale, spitting a stream of bubbles to the surface. Still, he refused to inhale, but finally, the searing in his chest forced him to gasp – he had to breathe, he had to have air. Instead, icy water rushed in and filled his mouth, and then his lungs. His frantic struggles slowed until they finally ceased altogether and the panic magically transformed itself into calm acceptance. Limp, his body drifted to the bottom of the lake.

The dog howled into the night, its grief echoing across the lake into the darkness. It held a lonely vigil. When it was finally over, he set off, not toward the cabin, but back across the lake toward the dark woods that lay beyond, leaving behind him forever the only companion he had ever known.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Who was this man who met such an untimely death on Gander Lake? His name was Noel Boss, and history records that he was a furrier who trapped and traded furs in the Notre Dame Bay area of Newfoundland's northeast coast in the early to mid 1800s. It is known that he was of Mi'kmaq descent and that he was well known to many of the European settlers living in that area, and had, in fact, on a number of occasions visited the home of John Peyton, Jr., a renowned merchant in Exploits who later became the magistrate of Twillingate.

It is clear that Boss was a competent and experienced woodsman, and was in that respect not unlike many other furriers who operated in the area at that time. But there the similarities end. For he was something else – something far more sinister. He was reputedly a hunter of humans, a predator who stalked and ambushed men, women, and children and killed them indiscriminately. He was arguably one of the worst murderers that Newfoundland has ever known. He not only killed people, he kept count and openly boasted about his foul deeds. At the time of his drowning, his tally stood at ninety-nine, and his stated objective was to “kill an even hundred” before he was through.

Unbelievably, this man was never charged or prosecuted for his crimes even though they were well known and he himself made no effort to conceal them. For his victims were not white settlers. They were Beothuk Indians. Although laws had been enacted by the early 1800s to prevent the persecution of the Beothuk, they were rarely enforced, and the killing of natives, which had started not long after John Cabot made his landfall at Bonavista in 1497, continued unchecked.

One of his intended victims was Shanawdithit, the young woman believed to have been the last of the Beothuk race. In her captivity, she related how she had been cleaning venison by the side of a brook one day when she looked up and saw him aiming his long gun at her from the opposite side. She fled and escaped, but not before receiving shotgun wounds to her arm, hand, and foot. Although she survived her injuries, she walked with a limp for the rest of her life. The fact that Boss himself escaped death until he met his demise by his own traps on Gander Lake attests to the man's cunning and woodsmanship, for undoubtedly he was well known to the Beothuk and would have been one of their prime targets.

If viewed from the perspective of the size of the entire Beothuk population, which some historians suggest never exceeded more than a thousand, the contribution of Noel Boss and a few others of his ilk to the eventual extinction of the Beothuk people is nothing short of staggering.

Two hundred years or more have elapsed since the incident on Gander Lake, and the shameful eradication of the Beothuk race is now a distant part of our history. Our museums offer displays of Beothuk artifacts, and at Boyd's Cove in Notre Dame Bay an actual Beothuk encampment site has been discovered and preserved. Some knowledge of the language and culture of the Beothuk race has been handed down to us by Shanawdithit and her aunt, Demasduit (Mary March), during their brief stays in captivity. And somewhere in the murky depths of Gander Lake lie the bones of a murderous villain of the worst order.

This depiction of Noel Boss is based primarily on information contained in Joseph R. Smallwood's
Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador
(St. John's: Newfoundland Book Publishers Limited, 1967, 1981) and
The Book of Newfoundland
(St. John's: Newfoundland Book Publishers Limited, 1967). Some other publications, such as Michael Crummey's River Thieves (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2001) and James P. Howley's
The Beothucks or Red Indians
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1915), portray him in a kinder light, emphasizing the colourful nature of his character and his prowess as a hunter and woodsman, while downplaying any predatory tendencies he may have had toward the Beothuk.