Wake The Stone Man (16 page)

That summer I dug up a garden and planted potatoes and kale. I tried a few other things to see what would grow in the clay soil. The letter came in July. I was accepted. Had to read the letter four times before I could believe it. I had been certain I wouldn't get in. I drove into town that night to tell Kikko and Toivo.

At the end of August, Toivo and Kikko came out to help me dig up the garden. I left them with enough potatoes to get them through the winter. I left the house keys with Toivo. He drove me to the airport. I was nervous and kept checking my ticket and boarding pass and running to the bathroom to pee. I went over and over the instructions with Toivo about selling my car and shipping my stuff out by train once I got there.

“Yeah, yeah. I got it. I'll get the stuff to you, don't worry.”

“The house will be pretty quiet now with Anna and me gone. ” Anna had left for Winnipeg the week before.

“Yeah, about time. We'll finally get some peace and quiet.”

“Admit it, you'll miss us,” I teased.

“You better get on that plane if you're going. I haven't got all day to hang around here.”

I threw my arms around Toivo, then turned quickly so he couldn't see my tears as I went through security.

***

Flying out of Fort McKay the plane banked over the Nor'Wester Mountains, then circled back over the city before heading out across Lake Superior. I looked down at the wharf in front of Sask Pool 7 and remembered the skinny little girl swinging her legs over the side of the dock. I looked down at First Avenue and the Empire Building and remembered standing on that street looking up at a plane flying overhead, thinking about all the lucky people getting out. Now it was
me
getting out. I thought I'd be excited, but I felt like I was stepping off a cliff — falling into the unknown.

As we lifted higher over the water I could see the profile of the Stone Man lying across the harbour with his arms crossed over his chest watching me fly out across Lake Superior. Away.

book three

chapter twenty-one

In some ways Halifax was a lot like Fort McKay. I lived not too far from the waterfront in a house on a hill and from my bedroom window I could see the harbour. It reminded me of Lake Superior. Halifax looked like Fort McKay but it was different. People were polite but kept to themselves because of the whole come-from-away thing. If you weren't born on the East Coast or didn't have family going back about ten generations you were considered a come-from-away. It wasn't something people came right out and said, just a thing that sat under the surface.

In Fort McKay if someone had a problem with you they just said it right to your face. People were more straight ahead that way. I missed that. I missed Toivo and Kiiko and Anna. I missed the bush and the Stone Man.

Toivo had shipped all my canvases out by train, and as I was unpacking them I unwrapped the painting of Nakina at the Lorna Doone restaurant and set it on the mantelpiece. I unwrapped tissue from around the tiny black shoe I had found in the rubble of the residential school and placed it on the mantelpiece beside the painting. I wondered if Nakina was still in Fort McKay. It felt so far away.

School was intense, which was good, so I didn't have much time to be homesick. I was taking a full course load, with art history, two drawing classes, constructed forms and photography. I signed up for a darkroom tutorial as well.

When I wasn't in class I wandered the streets of Halifax with my camera. I developed the photos myself and was learning a lot about how to use light to manipulate the images. I decided to use the photos to make note cards to send home.

October 18, 1972

Dear Toivo and Kiiko,

Hope you like the card. I took the photo on the front. It's the old clock on Citadel Hill which is about a five-minute walk from my place. It was built around 1800.

Happy Thanksgiving! Sorry I missed all the good grub. Did you make pumpkin pies?

I'll bet it was good to have Anna home for a visit. I got a letter from her last week and it sounds like she's doing OK. Things here are good. I'm still getting settled in and figuring things out. I like our house. It's an old house, built in the 1870s. You don't see many houses that old in Fort McKay! There's three bedrooms upstairs so we all get a room, and then a big kitchen, and the living room has a fireplace, which is nice because it's starting to get cold.

I know I told you I might come home for Christmas, but I've decided to stay in Halifax. I have exams two weeks before Christmas and then I want to spend some time in my studio over the holidays to get ready for next term. Oh yeah, I have a studio. I share it with two other students, but it's a big space.

Molly

I wasn't completely honest about my reasons for not going home at Christmas. I was just starting to feel settled in Halifax, and I liked that. And then there was the whole thing about Christmas Eve and the anniversary of the accident. Better to be in a place with no memories, where I could work alone all night in my studio and not have to remember.

December 2, 1972

Dear Anna,

I'm taking a photography course so I've made some cards to show you what it's like out here. This is a photo of a container ship coming into the harbour. You can see a tugboat just behind it, helping to escort it into port.

How are things in the Peg? How's school? Things here are good. I like Halifax, it reminds me a bit of Fort McKay. My house is near Citadel Hill and when you stand on the hill and look down at the harbour it's a lot like standing up on Hillcrest Park looking down at the lake.

I'm still getting used to things at school. NSCAD isn't what I expected. There's a lot of reading which is OK. The thing I don't like are the crits — that's when you have to stand in front of the class and talk about your work and everyone critiques it, which usually means ripping it apart. I'm getting a tougher skin though, which is probably a good thing.

Sorry I won't see you at Christmas, but hope you all have a great time.

Molly

When the Christmas madness started I tried to keep a low profile. Everyone was talking about heading home and how great it was going to be to have the family all together. They'd go through all their family rituals of special foods and traditions and whether they opened their presents Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. When they asked me about my plans I just said my family didn't celebrate Christmas — that quickly put an end to the conversation.

I walked to the college on Christmas Eve and the streets were empty. It had been snowing, but the temperature rose and the snow turned to sleet and then rain.

There was no one at the college except the commissionaire. I wound my way through the old building, along a labyrinth of narrow halls and stairs that seemed to wind in all directions like an Escher print. I had a key to my studio and I turned on the light and hung up my wet coat. It was cold. They'd turned the heat down in the building for the holidays.

I put a new canvas on the easel and sat looking at it. The wind blew the rain against the window. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to be alone at Christmas. I wanted to be home with Toivo and Kiiko, but I couldn't. If I had gone back to Fort McKay I know that on Christmas Eve I would have put on my coat and walked out the door and down the street. I would have gone around the corner and walked up to the house with the red door where I had grown up. I would have stood in front of that door and seen two cops walking up the sidewalk, and I would have seen a frightened girl open the door. And when she opened the door I would have seen her world fall apart.

March
15, 1973

Dear Kiiko and Toivo,

This is a photo of the harbour on a really cold day in February. The white mist sitting on the water is called sea smoke and the dark shadow you see coming through the sea smoke is the Dartmouth ferry.

I can't believe my first year is almost over. I did well, considering. Got a great mark in art history, which was good. And I have some news — I got a job. I'm going to be working in a small art gallery in Lunenburg for the summer. It doesn't pay a lot, but I get to live in an apartment above the gallery for free. It's good experience and will look good on my resume. Look at me, eh, talking about jobs and resumes. Anyway, sorry I won't be back for the summer. Hope everything back home is OK. I'll send you some pictures from Lunenburg when I get there.

Oh, and Happy St. Urho's Day!

Molly

I looked at the photo of the sea smoke rising in white plumes on the harbour. It obscured the view of the city and the McDonald bridge and the ships. That's what living in Halifax was like. Everything was obscured — not quite visible. I was lonely, but I didn't want to tell Toivo and Kikko. I knew they would be disappointed about my staying in Nova Scotia for the summer. They wouldn't say so, but I knew they would be. Toivo had been doing some work on my house and I know he was excited for me to see it. He told me if I wanted to put in a bigger garden he could get a friend with a tractor to work up another quarter acre. He thought squash might do well. I needed the experience in the gallery though and I was excited about living in Lunenburg. The room above the gallery had a studio space so I would be able to paint all summer. I was working on a painting of Dad out in the boat with Nakina. The paintings kept them close.

December 19, 1973

Hi Anna,

This is a photo of the Split Crow which is a bar beside the art college where a lot of the students hang out. It's not the Wayland Hotel, but I think you'd like it.

So your mom tells me you're getting serious about some guy from Winnipeg. Is he someone from the university? Is he doing a law degree? What's he like? I want all the details.

Things here are OK. One of the things I was looking forward to was figure drawing, but that is considered too old school for the conceptual art folks so a bunch of students have organized an underground figure drawing class off campus.

Oh and I'm learning weaving. I know what you're thinking — me, weaving. I thought I'd be crap but turns out I love it. It takes a lot of patience, especially setting up the loom, but I love the texture of the wools and the colours. If I ever move back to the cabin in Kamanistiquia I think I'll get a loom.

You know I told you I was taking constructed forms this term — well I am going to have a piece in the NSCAD student show this spring. It's called Stone Man. I created it with eight pieces of Plexiglas which have been heated and moulded to form the outline of the Sleeping Giant.

Glad to hear you're going to be going home at Christmas, but I'm afraid I'm not going to make it. Too much work and I'm really behind in a couple of essays, so I'll stay on here.

Molly

In the spring I worked at the NSCAD gallery to assemble the installation for Stone Man. We had trouble with the lighting, which was supposed to ebb and flow like the northern lights and in the end had to get a new projector. I struggled with the artist's statement. In my first attempt I tried to put the sculpture into some context:

The Stone Man is a representation of the Sleeping Giant, a formation of mesas and sills that rise out of Lake Superior. Formed from ancient Precambrian rock, the Sleeping Giant is over 1.3 billion years old.

That sounded wrong. I wasn't doing a geology paper. I had to go beyond structure:

The Sleeping Giant, known as Nanna Bijou by the Ojibwe people, led his people to great riches of silver, but when his people were betrayed and a white man was led to the silver, Nanna Bijou was angered and rose up in a violent rage and in his wrath brought forth a great storm. When the storm had calmed and his people came out to see what was left of their world, they found Nanna Bijou turned to stone, lying across the harbour, arms crossed — feet forever guarding the silver treasure.

That wasn't right either. The Stone Man wasn't just geology or mythology. To me he was personal:

Geology gives him structure, mythology gives him story. He is a wonder of the world, and a wonder of my world. Always present, ever watching, ancient wisdom.

It was short and sweet and all that needed to be said.

June 24, 1974

Dear Toivo and Kiiko,

I took this photo from the middle of the MacDonald Bridge and you can see across the harbour out to the ocean. The lighthouse you can see is on George's Island.

I can't believe I'm graduating in three weeks. I wish you could be here for the convocation, but I know it's hard for you to get away. Thanks so much for the box of goodies. I shared the Kivela bakery coffee bread with my roommates and they could see why I keep talking about it.

I had a talk with my academic advisor and I've decided to continue on and do my masters. He was very encouraging and it will only be another two years.

I'm putting an exhibition together as part of my application to the masters program and Dr. Thompson, my advisor, has suggested that I apply to some galleries once it's complete because it would be good to get my work seen. I'm going to apply to the gallery I worked at in Lunenburg and a couple in Toronto, and I plan to apply to the new art gallery in Fort McKay. If I get accepted then I'll have a chance to get home to see you.

I'll get my friends to take some photos of the graduation and I'll send them to you.

Oh and thanks Toivo for taking care of the house for me. It must have been a lot of work to clean out that old well. I was reading your description of scooping out the dead rats to my roommate Terry and it almost made her puke! I'm glad you took the water samples in to get tested. Let me know when you get the results back.

Miss you guys

Molly

I was nervous about the graduate student show, but in the end it all went well. There were twelve of us who submitted pieces to the show and we cheered each other on and had a great party at the Split Crow after the opening. The Stone Man was well received, though most people didn't really understand it. If you're from Fort McKay the Sleeping Giant is in your blood and doesn't need an explanation.

July
29, 1974

Hi Anna,

I took this photo from the top of the Dartmouth ferry at night and the lights you see are the Halifax skyscape. The moon was full that night and you can see the reflection on the water.

Well, your mom and dad told me all about your visit, and they've given Kevin the thumbs up. I'm really happy for you.

I've been working on pieces for my masters exhibition and it has been rough. I need to finish it in a month, so I'm pulling a lot of all-nighters. Did I tell you about the show? I'm using the paintings I did back when I was working in that crazy little studio on the top of the Sask Pool.

I have three paintings of Nakina in the show. Do you remember that time she was in the powwow up on the mountain? She was wearing the jingle dress she got from Rocky Lake, and Dad took a picture of her. Well, I've been working on that painting for about a week or more. We're standing side by side and I have my arm over her shoulder and Nakina's got this silly grin on her face and she's got her two fingers sticking up like feathers at the back of my head. What a goofball.

I wish I knew where she was, Anna. I just want to know she's OK. If you hear anything about her, I know, you're in the Peg, but if you hear anything let me know, OK?