ISLAND PASSAGES, The Maple Hill and Other Journeys

This book is a collection of short stories unique to the environment where I grew up; I have the fortune living on St. Joseph Island in the St. Mary’s Channel between Lake Superior and Lake Huron.  The Island, approximately 12 x 15 miles, has an unique history including Fort St. Joseph established by the British military at the turn of the 19^th century.  This fort played a pivotal role in defending Canada during the War if 1812.   Later, mid-century, the Island was settled by numerous Irish immigrants.  My Great Grandfather came to Canada during the potato famine in Ireland in the mid-19th century where over 30% of the people fleeing Ireland died on the ships during the journey.  Immigrants at that time were granted 100 acres by the Canadian government if a certain percentage was cleared and a permanent dwelling was built, a gargantuan task for an oxen and a bucksaw.  They then sent for their families.  I live on one of the old farms of his son, my grandfather, and find this a perfect backdrop for writing. 

I was born and raised here, fourth generation in a place steeped in history.  Some short stories express the legacy of my ancestors as told to me by my mother.  ‘The Good Maxwell’ and ‘Hard Red Candy’ are based on true stories of the hardships faced before the Island became more developed with unique villages, a car ferry, and a system of roads.  Eventually, in 1972, a bridge was built, and I had the pleasure of working a summer job as a deckhand the last year the ferry, ‘The St. Joseph Islander’, was in operation inspiring the story, ‘Ferry’. 

Other stories center around growing up here.  The Maple Hill Series consists of a number of experiences I had at a one-room school, ‘The Maple Hill’.  The first story in that  series, ‘The Coat’ is especially poignant as it involved a friendship between two little boys, one Ojibway, who experienced racial bias and ended up quitting in grade seven.  The teacher was a disciplinarian who used often a large leather strap hung ominously on the wall outside the boy’s entry.  ‘The Brian Grady Story’ highlights a new student who could neither read nor write and how he was treated by the headmaster.

‘Hidden Treasures’ is about a father and his two small boys who adopted a flying squirrel into their home, also based on a true story.  When the boys leave to spend time with their mother, he is naturally distraught, but usually finds something left behind by the boys, a small pyramid of rocks, for instance, piled carefully on the bumper of his truck, which remind him that they will be back.  The evolution of the squirrel juxtaposed with the relationship with his sons becomes a passionate backdrop for the story’s conclusion.

This anthology is intimate and exclusive to the remarkable experiences I enjoyed growing up on St. Joseph Island.  There is humor mixed with stark reality, and there is something for readers of all backgrounds; it is a must read.

Excerpt from ‘Hard Red Candy‘: It is in the early 1900’s where these immigrants, isolated even more because they settled on an island, struggled to live off the land:

Winter came early that year, in the first week of November, and it came with malice.  On his way to the house after evening chores, Cyrus looked up at the dark clouds and cursed. The silence seemed to accumulate, to build pressure like a kettle about to whistle.  It struck in the night, and with condemnation.  The snow was blown by a strong east wind that assailed the house in gusts sending a wail through the eaves every few minutes.  All night they could hear its loud lipless lament as it keened past the house. It heaved and moaned in great assaults; its large hands shook the building and rattled the window. By daybreak it was over.  More than two feet had fallen, covering everything.  Had anything been left outside, had any tool not been put away, it was now lost until spring.  Although the next week was clear, a thin sheath of clouds made the snow look colder and more despairing as it refused to sparkle.  And it got cold.  The pond soon froze over, and ice had to be broken out of the troughs in the barn.  Cyrus covered Bud with a thick wool blanket when he found the animal shivering early one morning.  And the snow not only stayed, but more fell.  The storms seemed to hit bi-weekly so that by mid-December, it had completely covered the split-rail fencing.  Horse and cutter had difficulty until, with great effort, the trails and roads had been packed down. It would be a tough winter, especially since the early frost, but Cyrus had still some money from selling his cattle. He knew he could travel into town if need be to get food and supplies as he had done in previous winters.

Excerpt from ‘The Coat’: A young boy becomes best friends with an Ojibway boy who lives nearby:

As a young boy, I remember having to swallow a spoonful of Cod Liver Oil every morning before breakfast.  It came in an ominous brown bottle and embossed on the glass was the image of a man with an oilskin hat.  He carried over his shoulder a huge fish with a gaping mouth, so large that its tail reached the ground.  It was dreadful, something you had the pleasure of tasting over and over again during the day every time you had the misfortune to burp.  However, it was much more palatable during the summer, as, was often the case, I was on my way next door to the Kenosha’s.  By next door, I mean about a mile away.  They lived in several buildings all of which were tarpapered and strapped with vertical spruce slats to keep the wind from tearing the paper. 

Excerpt from ‘Hidden Treasures’: A flying squirrel has been taken in by a father and his two young boys: “I saw definite tower moments of the narrator’s life crumbling, of him picking up the pieces and doing his best to maintain a safe creative atmosphere for his boys to experience and gain confidence.  The father’s sentimentality in maintaining items left behind to further reference and feel their sweet presence…the bonding they all shared caring for the squirrel…the relationship back to the squirrel and the inevitable spiral of life through nature make this story special,” Chandler.

The boys and I got used to his routines – could predict his movements once we heard the familiar “plop,” when dusk summoned deep within his brain the instinct to awaken.  And with him awoke a wondrous swirl of bliss.  He was such a sweet and gentle creature.  Like the tide he went through his ritual, leaping, leaping, advancing and retreating, enveloping all things around him, unpretentious and thrilled, making his way to each of us, distributing whatever gifts he had come to give, meting out delight punctually and graciously, so that we were all equally blessed for no more reason than a squirrel, flying through the room joyous.