Spirit Quest by Jennifer Frick-Ruppert

Author:Jennifer Frick-Ruppert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile fiction, Algonquin, Native Americans, North America, Spirits, Wilderness survival
ISBN: 9781944995171
Publisher: Amberjack Publishing
Published: 2017-04-03T16:00:00+00:00

My Spirit Quest

As Roncommock had predicted, we stayed at the fishing camp through the full-moon period of good tides. I spent as much time as possible on the sandy banks, but I had to help with drying the fish and tending the fires at the main camp. Whenever I had the opportunity, even if it meant giving up a fishing expedition, I explored the bank, waiting for contact or some indication of the spirits. Ascopo spent the whole time fishing. Only once did he visit the dunes and the sea with me. He said there were no fish to catch there.

The striped bass—the mesickek—swept in the inlet in huge numbers, and when a school came through, the men stayed busy hauling them out of the trap. I didn’t see any giants that were as long as a man is tall, but we caught several fish that were as long as Keetrauk’s legs and dried them over the fire. Our fishing party ate most of the smaller fish, but we smoked and dried the larger ones to take back to the village.

One afternoon, Ascopo and I finally fished for blue crabs—the training we were to have received before my fishing accident postponed the crabbing adventure. It was fun because the bait carcasses attracted more than just blue crabs. We did indeed catch blue crabs, but we also caught hermit crabs that lived inside whelk shells or other shells that they carried on their backs and retreated into when they were disturbed. Some of these crabs had brown, striped legs and were big. Others had white legs and were smaller. After a while, we attracted a few of the big, round crabs—the seékanauk—and hauled them up on shore. When we turned them upside down in the sand, they struggled to right themselves by folding their tail-spike forward, thrusting it into the sand and then using the anchored spike to pole themselves upright. When a small shark with a rounded head came to the carcass, I quit fishing. The little shark was not so scary with its gently rounded head, and I couldn’t even see its eyes and mouth, but the rest of it looked too much like the monster that attacked me.

Ascopo already knew how to prepare a fish carcass for use as crab bait. He tied a rope through the gills and around the head, tossed it out into the water, and then tied the free end to a stout branch that he’d broken from a tree. He said we should be patient, but it was hard to wait and wonder what was happening to that carcass in the deep water. Before long, Ascopo pulled in the line very slowly, hand over hand, with the carcass still attached. As it gradually appeared out of the depths, we saw that two large blue crabs were clinging to the head while tearing away bits of fish-flesh with their pincers and passing them to their busy mouths. The sight of the two big crabs

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