Free Wicked Woods by Steve Vernon Page A

freely with the evening mist, and the night wind blows lonely and sorrowful and full of regret.

11

T HERE W ILL
B E B LOOD
    CATONS ISLAND

    In the first month of 1611, a pair of Jesuit missionaries, Pierre Biard and Enemond Masse, set sail from France and arrived at Port Royal, Nova Scotia, the first permanent French settlement in Canada. Port Royal was built on the site of modern-day Annapolis Royal. You may remember that it served as a base for Sieur D’Aulnay Charnisay, the archrival of Charles La Tour and his wife Madame La Tour.
    The two missionaries, Biard and Masse, were under the orders of the king’s confessor to take charge of the Jesuit mission in Acadia. It was a rough job, but France had confidence in the men they had chosen.
    In the summer of 1611, the two men, accompanied by a crew of hardy St. Malo traders, set sail up the St. John River to a tiny little island called Emenic, just off of Long Reach. Nowadays they call this place Catons Island but back in the seventeenth century it was nothing more than a rung on a long ladder leading inland to future trading grounds. The traders hoped to establish a perma–nent trading base on the island, while the missionaries planned to meet with local holy men and get to know the Maliseet.
    The journey down the St. John River was a rough one, but Biard and his men were seasoned travellers. Still, this was a strange and dark country to them. All along the riverside the trees bowed down their heads, and the wind whistled through the branches, and the black flies and mosquitoes buzzed incessantly. They saw bear and moose and other creatures they did not recognize. Fish jumping in the river’s waves startled them, and at every turn they felt the for–est breathing about them as if in anticipation of a coming feast.
    The travellers were still a league and a half away from Catons Island when the sun called it a day and nighttime rolled on in. The stars were just beginning to peek out of the darkness when all at once a part of the northern sky turned a bright blood red. As if the sky were burning down, this light spread in vivid streaks and flashes, until the shining glow completely encompassed the nearby Maliseet settlement.
    Biard remarked “the red glow was so brilliant that the whole river was tinged and made luminous by it. The apparition lasted about five minutes and as soon as it disappeared another came from the same direction, with the same form and appearance.”
    Of course, it is very probable that this phenomenon was noth–ing more than an early sighting of the aurora borealis, or the northern lights. However, the Maliseet came to the missionaries and pointed up at the bright shimmering radiance, crying out, “Gara, gara, maredo.” According to Biard their warning translated as: “We shall have war. There will be blood.”
    We might file that dubious translation in the same sector as the guides who thought Kanata was the name of the country they were travelling in, rather than a First Nations term for a village or cluster of houses.
    According to all descriptions the light radiated across the entire sky. The Maliseet swore that it was a spirit warning them of oncoming danger, and perhaps they were right.
    Biard’s band of travellers was decidedly unnerved by the occur–rence. They met with the settlers at Catons Island, and an argu–ment and battle nearly ensued.
    The settlers, panicked by the sight of the eerie light mistook Biard’s men for a group of bandits.
    In Biard’s words, “What a night this was; for it passed in con–tinual alarms, gun shots and rash acts on the part of some of the men.”
    They were worried that the Maliseet’s prediction, inspired by the omen in the night sky above, would have its bloody fulfillment on the earth below. The night was spent in sleepless terror and in the morning, in an effort to re-establish some sense of order and a little hope, Biard