Visible Bones by Jack Nisbet

Author:Jack Nisbet [Nisbet, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-57061-953-3
Publisher: Sasquatch Books
Published: 2014-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

A Supper Fire∼

IN MAY 1841, LIEUTENANT CHARLES WILKES, commander of the U.S. Exploring Expedition, passed the foot of Mount Coffin. Wilkes was immediately taken with the scene, commenting that the great numbers of canoes that littered its slopes in every direction “were as fast going to decay as the living.” He also recognized that the landmark afforded a favorable point for observation and returned in late August with a surveying crew. As the men carried their instruments to the top of the mount, they passed hundreds of canoes in all stages of decay, many supported by tree limbs four or five feet off the ground. Beneath a clear and beautiful sky, the surveyors spent the day on the summit, taking a full set of observations on signal flags they had posted up and down the river.

After supper at the bottom of the mount, Wilkes shoved off with his crew to return to his ship. Apparently someone carelessly forgot to extinguish the cooking fire, and as the party rowed away they noticed that the flames had gotten out of control. “I regretted to see,” wrote Wilkes, “that the fire had spread and was enveloping the whole area of the mount; but there was no help for it. The flames continued to rage throughout the night until all was burnt.” Next morning the lieutenant presented the local Indians with a few small presents and explained that the fire had been an accident. While Wilkes said that the people appeared satisfied with his explanation, he conjectured that only a few years earlier—before the strength of the tribes had been decimated by intermittent fever—“the consequence of such carelessness would have been a hostile attack.”

Wilkes’s supposition was confirmed when Canadian artist Paul Kane visited Mount Coffin five years later and learned that the event had not been forgotten. “Commodore Wilkes having made a fire near the spot, it communicated to the bodies, and nearly the whole of them were consumed,” he wrote. “The Indians showed much indignation at the violation of a place which was held so sacred by them, and would no doubt have sought revenge had they felt themselves strong enough to do so.” Yet in spite of this bitter incident, the people must have continued to use the mount as a cemetery, for Kane estimated that two or three hundred canoes were deposited there at the time of his visit.

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