Pinamen…can you hear me? I’m out here alone on the beach, far from the village. I feel good here, and closer to you. I’ve got the big lake in front of me and the forest at my back. Tonight our grandmother the moon is round and full. The huge fir trees wrap me in their shadows.

Pinamen, I can still see your smile — and the look you gave me when we went our separate ways. Your eyes and lips were sad.

I’ll find you again, no matter what. But I don’t know what the future holds, and right now I’m like a hare leaping around in a panic — first left, then right, not knowing where it’s going.

The road I take may be a long one, but I know in my heart that it is leading me to you.

3

FATHER LAFRAMBOISE IS our new young missionary. He can speak our language a little. He says he learned it from books.

When he arrives for his parish visit today, it’s as if he knows what’s been going on. Some people think he has good intuition. Others say he’s just well informed. Faces cloud over when he comes and people are quiet. We talk about hunting, fishing, the weather, but no one says a word about the surveyors.

As usual, Father Laframboise goes from tent to tent, from cabin to cabin. He smiles, shakes hands, coos at the babies. He seems cheerful. Then he goes down to the beach beside the Hudson’s Bay Company wharf.

The men are all gathered there, repairing their canoes, smoking their pipes and chatting together. They’re worried because more and more loggers are moving into the hunting grounds. They cut down everything in sight, like they’re in some kind of rage. They leave nothing behind. The animals flee from the noise of the chainsaws and the lack of food. Logs are floated on the rivers and then stored in the big lakes. They rip our fish nets, smash into the canoes, block the waterways. Now our bears are feeding in the logging camp dumps. Their meat tastes bad; it’s not good to eat anymore.

The hunting grounds grow smaller by the day. The men wonder where and when it is all going to stop.

“What will be left for our children?” asks Basile.

The men’s silence says everything. Basile’s voice rises in anger. He holds the bowl of his pipe in his bony hand and points into the distance.