In the twelfth installment of the Collins-Burke Mystery Series, Halifax author, Anne Emery, brings us an unforgettable hero in the guise of Seamus Rynne, or Shay, as he’s known to the lads.
If you’re an armchair traveler, this book will sweep you up and transport you to Ireland. If you’ve traveled Ireland, like I have, this book will remind you what you’ve forgotten and are longing to experience again. That charm that is Ireland. It’s both homely and worldly. Set, for the most part, in 1970s Dublin, Fenian Street is historical crime fiction at its finest. This is a lengthy, ambitious book (422 pages) and Emery doesn’t shy away from discussing “The Troubles” — the politics of the time, given that her main characters are Republicans, and some are I.R.A. Emery combines real historical personages with fictional characters to ground her story in fact.
These unforgettable characters, with hearts of gold and tongues that spin stories like a seanchaí (shanachie), will take you pub-crawling in Dublin where you’ll have to throw back a pint or two just to keep up with the cracking dialogue. Then, in part two, you’ll be transported to 1970s New York to brush up against the likes of Mickey Spillane and certain Irish gangsters.
So, what’s the craic?
Young Shay Rynne, who grew up in the impoverished Corporation flats on Fenian Street in Dublin, wants to become a member of An Garda Síochána (Guardians of the Peace), the national police force in Ireland. But Dubliners like himself are unwelcome. When a childhood friend, Rosie McGinn, is found “lying at the foot of the back staircase of Goss’s Hotel” with fingermarks bruising her neck, and the investigating DS deems her death accidental, Shay vows to find her killer. He gets on the force and shines, though he’s made an enemy of the investigating officer, DS McCreevy.
Then he’s called to the scene of the brutal death of local politician, Darragh McLogan, and becomes embroiled in a murder investigation that leads him all the way to Hell’s Kitchen in New York City.
Hell’s Kitchen NYC 1970s
Emery’s research is extensive and she includes an extensive bibliography. She also acknowledges several retired garda who helped her with answers to her procedural questions. She’s traveled often in Ireland, as several family members originated there, and knows it well. And she has first-hand experience of what Ireland was like during The Troubles. She took the train from Dublin to Belfast in the 1980s and “saw cars being stopped and searched at checkpoints, saw the tanks, and the British soldiers in the streets with their rifles.” When Shay and Father Burke travel to the refugee camps in northern County Meath to help out, you know it’s heartfelt. “People were streaming across the border from the North to escape the attacks: loyalists—loyal to Britain, not to Ireland—were shooting Catholics and setting fire to their homes” (28). This, sadly, was the climate of the times.
I asked Anne Emery what it was like to write an entire book in dialogue. She said: “Writing dialogue is my favourite part of the process. I could spend hours with a group of people and not remember a thing about what they wore. But I can recount conversations, often word-for-word, and I can remember the cadences and tones of voice.” This gift is apparent in Fenian Street.
Just for fun, I wrote a list of all the Irish terms I found intriguing, many of which pertain to drinking alcohol. They have “lashings of drink”, get “langered” and “gilled.” Shay’s “oul fella” (father) Talkie Rynne is often “on the batter.” Rosie’s killed at a “hooley” (party) thrown by politicians, and if that doesn’t give you “a case of the janglers” nothing will. Shay is “heart-scawded” (overwrought) with the news of his friend’s death and so becomes a “peeler” (policeman.) Later, he’s “cock-a-hoop” to hear from his old girlfriend. You’ll think you’re in a Dublin snug as you slip into this heartfelt story.
Emery assures me that she’ll keep writing the series indefinitely so there’s plenty more shenanigans to come. If you’ve never tried the Collins-Burke Mysteries, don’t think you must start at the beginning. You can start right here. Fenian Street stands alone. Though Father Brennan Burke makes his usual charming appearances, this is Shay’s book.
I came across this article from the Historical Novel Society recently, and just loved it.
In it, Jane Stubbs, presents the case for long skirts, and it has less to do with modesty than it does with toilet habits. My favourite quote:
It is at this moment that a predominantly female audience, even a virtual one, will ask: Did they wear knickers? It is just not possible to give a definitive yes or no answer to the question. No diarist has obligingly written “I do not wear knickers.” Snippets of information come thick and fast. Someone has seen Queen Victoria’s huge drawers. Others wonder about the open crotch design or a panel at the back which unbuttons. Memories of rural privies abound.
Victorian drawers would be fastened with loops, bows, and buttons. If you were lucky, you might have a drawstring. The practicalities of fishing about among the many petticoats for the release button persuades many that knickers were an optional extra, not a daily essential. The realization that all they had to aim at was a chamber pot or a hole in the ground supports this theory. The obvious way for women to deal with their natural functions under such circumstances is to dispense with knickers. Then they can simply arrange their skirts so as to avoid splashes and preserve their modesty.
Fans and writers of historical fiction will love it. Go for it. Read on.
Twenty-five years ago today, on July 10, 1997, we left our home in Ontario for a new life in British Columbia.
At the time, I was working as a domestic abuse counsellor in a transition house in Oshawa, Ontario. Bethesda House is still there, helping women and children find their way through a tumultuous time. I’d graduated with my B.A. in Indigenous Studies in 1995, worked as a sexual assault counsellor at a Rape Crisis Centre, and then been hired at Bethesda House. But I was done with Ontario. The hot summers. The snowy winters. Freezing pipes and terrifying drives through icy roads. Bad weather and worse boyfriends. When I stopped feeling my fingers in winter, I knew I had to go.
I had no job and no idea where we’d live in British Columbia, but I had one friend on the Sunshine Coast and another in the Kootenays. I’d been accepted at UBC, and thought maybe I’d become a teacher.
My daughter had graduated from grade 8 that year and was starting high school. What better time to begin an adventure?
Tara & Carmen. still friends today
Fortunately, I jotted down a few notes in a journal as we drove West, like so many have done before us, and continue to do today. My daughter was fourteen, and we had Riley with us, our six-month-old border collie. Our friend, Dave, helped us pack the U-Haul trailer. I’ll never forget those puffins on the side! Dave helped us hitch it to my old white Cavalier station wagon. We looked something like this.
Everything we owned we packed in that trailer, but left our camping gear in the back of the wagon. I’d found a campground close to Vancouver—Anmore Campground near Buntzen Lake. That X on the map was our destination.
packing up our possessions
I’d never hauled a trailer and had no idea how to back it up, so we drove the whole way going forward. Except for this one time when I drove to the top of a hill and then realized I was on a dead end road. Somehow, I turned us around jack-knifing, cursing, and praying all the while. The following is taken from my 1997 journal.
Thursday July 10. We drove off at 6am and landed at the Queensway Motel in Espanola (between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie) at 3:30pm — $40/night. 486 km and $16.00 for gas.
Friday July 11. We left Espanola at 6am and crossed the border into Michigan at 9:30 am. By 8pm, we’d arrived in Wakefield. 13 hours. 733 km and $16.00 for gas. I wrote: “The country along the South Superior shore is beautiful. We swam in Superior between Munising and Marquette. Gorgeous sandy beaches, but the water is freezing!”
Saturday July 12. We left Wakefield, Michigan at 6am and drove through two whole states: Wisconsin and Minnesota. I loved the land, the national parks, and later set a novel right there in central Minnesota near the Leech Lake Reservation—LURE. We arrived in Grand Forks, North Dakota around 4pm. 10 hours. 635 km and $23.50 for gas. I wrote: “Yikes. Prairie rain. We drove through two hours of hard rain storms but tonight is very hot and humid. More thunderstorms expected.”
Sunday July 13. We left Grand Forks at 6:30am and drove to Williston, North Dakota (which is almost Montana). We arrived at the Select Inn at 3pm. 8.25 hours. 546 km and $20.50 for gas. I wrote: “Ran rainclouds and learned to read a prairie sky. Yeah! They have a pool! We ate supper at a cool place called Trappers Kettle.” Aha. It’s still there and still cool.
Monday July 14. We left Williston at 6:15am, changed time zones again, and arrived in Laurel (just past Billings) Montana at 3:30pm. It was sunny & 90 degrees F. We were just too frazzled to go on. 615 km and $19.50 for gas. We stayed at the Welcome Travelers Motel. I wrote: “Miles and miles of rangeland dotted with cows and horses. We passed deer and pheasants on the road.”
Roadside Break in Montana
Tuesday July 15. At 6am, we left Laurel Montana. We drove through the Rocky Mountains all through Montana and Idaho. Yellowstone Country! We almost didn’t make it to the top of Lookout Pass in Montana, and the Fourth of July Pass in Idaho was terrifying—driving in 3rd gear, 20mph to the top. We landed in Sprague, Washington at 7pm as we stopped to shop in Butte, Montana. 14 hours. 913 km. I think I was too freaked out to check the gas! I remember that Sprague was a one-silo town and I had the creeps. We stayed at the Purple Sage Motel (now closed) and I hid my purse in the bed with me that night. This Capital I Introvert was starting to lose her mind.
Wednesday July 16. A HORRIBLE HORRIBLE DAY. We left Sprague and drove through the Cascade Mountains. As we drove up the pass, my temperature gauge glowed red and as we hurtled down the other side it slipped back into the green. It was blistering hot but I kept my foot on the gas.
We drove through Seattle at noon and arrived at Canada Customs at 2pm. As we were sitting in the lineup at the Peace Arch, I smelled something burning. “I hope that’s not us,” I said to Tara. Then we saw smoke wafting out the hood of the wagon. I’d toasted the thermostat and the fan. The motor ran out of coolant and the car overheated. The border guard took one look at us and waved us on. “Just go,” he said. “Just keep going.” We drove through White Rock spewing coolant. Some nice guys helped us out at Crescent Service Station where we got a new thermostat installed. Still, we overheated all the way through New Westminster. I hated driving through New West, and I still do to this day! We finally arrived at the Sleepy Lodge Motel in Coquitlam at 8pm. Riley ate some rotten bone out back and had diarrhea all over the disgusting gold shag rug! I wrote: “Oh yeah. I got my period too.”
Thursday July 17. We unpacked the trailer at the U-Haul Storage in Port Moody and got the fan fixed at Canadian Tire. From Sprague Washington to Port Moody 695 km.
And then we got a fantastic camping spot in the overflow area at Anmore Campground near Buntzen Lake. We pitched the tent and crawled into our sleepings bags for the very first time. $22/night. We’d finally made it to that little X on the map.
Caesarea, Ontario to Buntzen Lake, BC 4,258 KM in 7 DAYS
Ironically, I ended up living and teaching in Port Moody for most of the next twenty-five years, though I never went to UBC. On Saturday July 19, we drove down Hastings Street and right through downtown Vancouver. I wrote: “Scary. Chaotic. Too many people. Too little space. No UBC.” At the time, I knew nothing about the Downtown Eastside, and the people we saw there in the streets that Saturday morning. On the way back to Port Moody, we decided to try and find a beach. I mean, we were finally at the West Coast and hadn’t found the ocean yet! I looked at the map and chose Wreck Beach which, unbeknownst to us at the time, is the most famous nude beach in Vancouver. Right about then, we realized we rural Ontario girls were just not ready for Vancouver life.
I was destroyed! I thought I’d made a huge mistake and was considering going back to Ontario. I called my friend, Jackie, who lives in Kaslo (the Kootenay Mountains) and asked if we could stay at her place for a few days while I figured out what to do. It didn’t look far on the map (just over an inch) but 13 hours later, I was driving through the Rockies, covering my view of the drop-off cliffs, and crying, “I can’t do this!” I told Jackie I’d never drive to her place again along the Crow’s Nest highway, and I never have. I love you Jackie, but mountains to flatlanders are like traversing another planet. Jackie calmed me down, and while we were visiting, we found our first basement suite in Burnaby at Canada Way and 10th Avenue. I discovered SFU on Burnaby Mountain, and so our new lives began.
We had great times at Anmore Campground and, years later, I set my Hollystone Mystery series at Buntzen Lake. We camped for about three weeks and, after that, my daughter refused to camp with me ever again! Though I think I still have that old blue cooler.
In all, we travelled 4,258 km in 7 days—me, my 14-year-old daughter, and our 6-month-old border collie puppy.
No regrets. If we’d stayed in Ontario our lives would be someone else’s lives. We wouldn’t be the people we are today. We wouldn’t know the people we know today. And oh, the experiences we would have missed.
This book starts halfway through the ten-book Marc Edwards Mysteries series. I chose to read it first because it’s set in Upper Canada 1838, and I’m sliding into that time myself to do some historical research for a family history. Published in 2013 by Touchstone, the series is written by poet, author, and Western University professor emeritus, Don Gutteridge.
The story is set at a key historic moment when two Canadas are struggling for power: predominantly French Lower Canada (Quebec) and very British Upper Canada (Ontario). Rebellions have disturbed the peace in both.
A Little Political Background
Louis-Joseph Papineau, a French-Canadian reformer born in Montreal, led the rebel Patriotes in a rebellion in November 1837. They opposed the power of the Catholic Church, the British Governor, and his advisors, the Chateau Clique. After the Patriotes were defeated, many French-Canadian settlements were burned to the ground, and Papineau fled into exile in the United States. Fleeing to the USA is a popular theme especially in the old days when borders were a little less guarded.
The following month, a Scottish newspaper publisher, William Lyon Mackenzie, and his radical followers attempted to seize control of the government in Upper Canada and declare the colony a republic. As in Lower Canada, an elite clique of pro-British businessmen called the Family Compact, ran the colony through a system of patronage. The rebels wanted democracy. Many of them were American farmers who’d moved north following the War of 1812. For four days, Mackenzie and his rebels gathered at Montgomery’s Tavern, then they marched south on Toronto’s Yonge Street. Guns were fired. Confusion ensued, and they dispersed. Perhaps spending four days convening in a tavern was not the wisest plan? Mackenzie and his group eventually fled to the United States where they joined with American rebels and wreaked havoc along the border.
By the following summer, Britain still ruled from across the sea, the cliques still ran both Canadas—one French, one English—and problems still hung in the air.
What About These Bloody Relations?
Enter Lord Durham. John George Lambton Durham was made governor general to both Upper and Lower Canada, and sent abroad to sort things out and write a report. The earl was nicknamed “Radical Jack” because he swayed to the liberal side of the Whig party. In the end, Durham recommended union of the Canadas, assimilation of French Canadians, and the introduction of responsible government—an elected assembly responsible to the people, rather than a top-down monarchy. The real Lord Durham was a somewhat sickly character. Gutteridge says: “Lord and Lady Durham did visit Toronto for a day and a half in July 1838, their stay cut short by the earl’s suffering a recurrence of his migraine and neuralgia.”
http://uppercanadahistory.ca
It’s during Lord Durham’s visit to Toronto in July 1838 that Bloody Relations takes place. I mention the political background because it is important to the plot of the story and Durham’s report changed Canada forever.
As I said, this is a murder mystery, so early on a sort of “locked-room murder” occurs in a brothel in Irishtown. Lord Durham’s shy, inebriated, nephew, Handford Ellice, is discovered snuggled in bed beside poor dead Sarah McConkey. He’s still unconscious, though she’s been stabbed through the neck. And, he’s holding the knife in his hand. Madame Renee had barred the outside door after Ellice was admitted and then gone off to bed along with the three other women who worked for her. So, inside the locked brothel are three prostitutes, the madame, and Ellice. The key questions? Who done it? And why are there no blood trails if it wasn’t Ellice?
While on patrol, Constable Horatio Cobb is called to the bloody murder scene by one of the distraught prostitutes. When he realizes who the alleged perpetrator is related to, he suggests that Marc Edwards handle the rather sensitive investigation. Marc and his wife, Beth, have just been to a soiree the previous evening with Lord and Lady Durham and met Ellice; in fact, Beth danced with the shy Ellice and befriended him. Now, he’s accused of murder and the Edwards are determined to get to the truth. Edwards feel that Ellice may have been set up to derail Lord Durham’s task.
It’s a brilliant set-up for a murder mystery and Gutteridge’s literary prose, combined with his poetic prowess and believable dialogue, brings the characters to life. The settings are vivid, especially Irishtown:
“The area was essentially a squatter’s haven. Its three dozen dwellings were ramshackle affairs at best: half-log shanties, clapboard hovels, temporary lean-tos confected out of the handiest scraps and flotsam of the town they appended, as welcome as a carbuncle on a buttock” (31).
I grew up just east of Toronto and worked downtown during my late teens so am familiar with many of the streets and locations: Yonge, Bay, Queen, College Park, Osgoode Hall. And I remember being threatened with ending up on Jarvis Street, the domain of prostitutes, if I didn’t mend my ways.
Murdoch Mysteries is set in Toronto fifty years later, but fans of the constabulary would enjoy the Marc Edwards Mysteries. There’s a similarity in the type of murders, the characters themselves, their speech, and behaviour.
My Research
I hadn’t thought about the effect of politics on my characters until reading this novel. Now, I’m left wondering what it would be like for a common French carpenter and his Irish wife and children to live in Cobourg, a small harbour town in Northumberland County, just east of Toronto, in these Tory-dominated days.
1830s Cobourg
What were their political leanings? Did they support the radicals? Perhaps, want to join the throng of three thousand who came to Queen’s Wharf to meet Lord and Lady Durham’s steamer? After all, Antoine Fusee had married his fourteen-year-old bride (Louisa McNally) in Montreal only three years prior (1835). Or would they keep quiet and submit to Tory rule? Were they merely concerned with subsistence and survival? Was it even safe to be French in Upper Canada?
As for the Marc Edwards Mysteries, I think I must read them all. Don Gutteridge is a find.
Don Gutteridge, Professor Emeritus, University of Western Ontario
An evocative epic laced with myth and fact, Water Sight completes the Last of the Gifted Series. In the first book, Spirit Sight, we find Cymru (Wales) hovering on the eve of destruction as the English king, Edward 1, better known as Longshanks, sends his armies railing against the native Celts. Fans of Braveheart, note that Longshanks practiced his brutal conquest techniques on the Welsh before turning his eye northward to Scotland and tangling with William Wallace.
There are several things I particularly appreciate about this book.
The interweaving dual storylines are fluidly crafted. As in Book One, the story is narrated by two protagonists: Hyw (16) and Catrin (14)—a brother and sister with extraordinary gifts. As the war with the English builds, so do their gifts and their need to use them. Hyw is a shapeshifter; Cat a spiritual healer able to lead captive spirits home to their eternal rest in Garth Celyn, a mystical place as legendary as faerie.
Cat shines in this story. Her quest is to reclaim the three relics that once belonged to the murdered Llywelyn—The Crown of Arthur, the Coronet of Wales, and Y Groes Naid (the Cross of Neith)—and give them to his younger brother, Prince Dafydd to rally the people. Though she is in love and betrothed to Rhys, for the most part Cat’s on her own as Rhys is working to protect Dafydd.
Powell’s lyrical writing has a formal tone flecked with Medieval and Old Welsh Gaelic phrases in such a way that they’re contextually definable. The language reflects the culture and reminds us that what was once taken by the English is now alive again. Powerful phrasing, sensory descriptions, and mythical references abound.
There are time-ticking constraints. It’s May 1283 when the story begins and they must rally the people by Autumn Equinox, and win by Nos Galan Gaeaf (Halloween.) When the veils are lowest between the worlds, Llywelyn must leave Hyw’s body, where his spirit has been housed since his murder, and join his Princess Eleanor and the ancestors in Garth Celyn. To be defeated means the soul of the legendary Prince of Wales will be lost forever.
Though the atmosphere is violent, vicious, and grave, Powell finds ways to add comic relief through Hyw’s hijinks as he shapeshifts into various animals: a hawk, a horse, a jackdaw, a mouse, a sparrow, an eagle. His transformations become more rapid as the stakes rise and his responses are comical.
The romance is true and transcends time. Cat and Rhys are destined; while Hyw’s love for James, a boy he grew up with, is sweet, sensitive, and accepted by the culture. “We are meant to be together, Hyw. If you will stay a hawk, then I will become a falconer. But if you would be a man, then come back to me.” Indeed, as they walk through the crowds holding hands, we can only hope for them.
This is a series for young adults and I recommend it to teachers and librarians. The characters face contemporary struggles in a historic setting. The mingling of myth, magic, and adventure will appeal to middle grade and high school students, but also their parents. The Last of the Gifted is a classic.
As I’ve said before the best research is hands-on. That way, you can indulge your senses.
Last Saturday, we enjoyed a day cruise from Gold River (on Vancouver Island, British Columbia) to Yuquot at Friendly Cove. This is Nuu-chah-nulth traditional territory. The term, Nuu-chah-nulth means “all along the mountains” and refers to sixteen tribes from Alaska to Washington state that speak different dialects, but collectively are sea-faring people.
Uchuck means healing waters. “The Uchuck III can move along at twelve knots, and carry up to 100 day-passengers and 70 tons of general cargo including three or four cars” (Get West.) We watched from the upper deck as the crew loaded supplies using a crane for the folks at Yuquot. This included a new red ATV that was immediately put to work when we arrived. When we were underway at last, the two-hour cruise took us through Muchalaht Channel past controversial fish farms and logging swaths, around Bligh Island (named for a young Captain Bligh of Bounty fame), and through Cook Channel into Friendly Cove. It was a perfect day of sun and fair breezes and the calm waters certainly felt healing. The captain said that humpback whales often come into Muchalaht Channel. All around Nootka Sound, salmon fishermen were hoisting their catch to show off their prizes.
In 2014, I lived at the Nootka Light Station for two months, while working as a relief lighthouse keeper. Although it was a short stint, catching sight of the white and red Coastguard buildings felt like coming home. We had three hours to explore the Yuquot site, which includes an amazing pebble beach, a portion of the Nootka Trail that leads past a graveyard and rentable cabins at Jewitt Lake, the old church which has now been reclaimed by the Indigenous community as a cultural centre, and of course, the light station. But I am setting a murder mystery here, so was most interested in locations where one might kill someone without being seen and hide something precious. This landscape is not new to killing. In 1788, Maquinna (the Mowachacht chief) sent his people aboard The Boston to repay many insults—including the murder of his brother-in-law—by European sailors. The entire crew was murdered and decapitated except for the blacksmith John Jewitt, and the sailmaker who hid below. Maquinna needed Jewitt’s skills so kept him alive, and Jewitt convinced Maquinna that the sailmaker was his father. Jewitt lived three years as part of Maquinna’s family, wrote his story on the dead captain’s paper, and eventually returned to Boston where it was published.
The long pier was teaming with people as the Mowachaht/Muchalaht community was holding their annual Spirit Summerfest campout in the grassy area near the church and many friends and relatives had come out aboard the Uchuck III to visit. There was also a celebration in the church as this year marked the 240thAnniversary of Captain James Cook’s arrival at Nootka Sound.
As the story goes, Cook arrived in what he first called King George’s Sound in the spring of 1778 with the Resolution and Discovery. Making the usual European blunder, he named the people and the place based on his suppositions. The Indigenous people—who’d been living here for thousands of years—called out and told the captain to go around to avoid the reefs. More precisely, it happened like this:
“Captain Cook’s men, asking by signs what the port was called, made for them a sign with their hand, forming a circle and then dissolving it, to which the natives responded ‘Nutka’. No.tkak or no.txak means “circular, spherical” (Sapir and Swadesh 1939:276) in The Whaling People.
Though the village was teaming with people, Cook claimed the land for Britain. The British soon called all the people there, the Nootka, though there were 1500 Mowachacht people living in villages in the area. Yuquot was the summer home of Maquinna’s people and they wintered down the channel in Tahsis. The Mowachacht—“people of the deer”—began a lucrative (especially for the British) trade in sea otter pelts.
Captain Cook’s claim on Yuquot set the stage for later conflicts between the Indigenous people as well as the Spanish, who built Fort San Miguel on the rocks beside the lighthouse. Sadly, within forty years, the sea otter disappeared. Fortunately, they are now back in the area. I remember seeing them playing near the pier when I lived there. This charming sea otter photograph was taken by my friend Ivan Dubinsky, principal keeper at Scarlett Point Lightstation north of Port Hardy.
On our return voyage, we sailed through the more turbulent waters of Zuchiarte Channel. I went up to the wheelhouse to ask about the ship, but Captain Adrien said that he’d only answer my questions if I took a turn at the wheel. So, under his direction, I steered the Uchuck III through King’s Passage.
The wheelhouse is beautiful and it was a thrill to turn the wheel two spokes starboard and then back to port to straighten her out while keeping my eyes on the bow.
The fabulous photo below was taken by Low Light Mike, August 28, 2010. One of the crew had just polished the engine-telegraph (to the left of the wheel) a piece from BCCS’s Princess Victoria,a River Clyde vessel that sailed around Cape Horn in 1904.
We arrived back in Gold River at 5:30pm. It was a long glorious day, and I recommend taking a voyage aboard the Uchuck III so you can get a taste of history firsthand. For more photographs, cruise and booking information, check out Get West. Below is a site map of Yuquot and a directional map to Gold River. All maps Friendly Cove and Map to Gold River
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It was a perfect day of sun and fair breezes and the calm waters certainly felt healing. The captain said that humpback whales often come into Muchalaht Channel. All around Nootka Sound, salmon fishermen were hoisting their catch to show off their prizes.
But I am setting a murder mystery here, so was most interested in locations where one might kill someone without being seen and hide something precious. This landscape is not new to killing.
In 1788, Maquinna (the Mowachacht chief) sent his people aboard The Boston to repay many insults—including the murder of his brother-in-law—by European sailors. The entire crew was murdered and decapitated except for the blacksmith John Jewitt, and the sailmaker who hid below. Maquinna needed Jewitt’s skills so kept him alive, and Jewitt convinced Maquinna that the sailmaker was his father. Jewitt lived three years as part of Maquinna’s family, wrote his story on the dead captain’s paper, and eventually returned to Boston where it was published.
