Voyageurs

Which reminds me, Michael is getting angry, so come and eat.

After supper, when the Crees and Voyageurs had rolled into their blankets, snoring, the two men lingered by the dying fire, there was much to talk about.

Wars and politics and explorations, the doings of men and the happenings of things, mutual friends, marriages, deaths, five years of history for which Fairfax clamored.

so the spanish fleet was bottled up in santiago van brunt was saying when a young woman stepped lightly before him and stood by fairfax's side she looked swiftly into his face then turned a troubled gaze upon van brunt chief tantlatch's daughter sort of princess fairfax explained with an honest flush one of the inducements in short to make me stay tom this is van brunt friend of mine van brunt held out his hand but the woman maintained a rigid repose quite in keeping with her general appearance not a line of her face softened not a feature unbent she looked him straight in the eyes her own piercing questioning searching precious lot she understands fairfax laughed our first introduction you know but as you were saying with the spanish fleet bottled up in santiago tom crouched down by her husband's side motionless as a bronze statue only her eyes flashing from face to face in ceaseless search and avery van brunt as he talked on and on felt a nervousness under the dumb gaze in the midst of his most graphic battle descriptions he would become suddenly conscious of the black eyes burning into him and would stumble and flounder till he could catch the gate and go again fairfax hands clasped round knees pipe out absorbed spurred him on when he lagged and repictured the world he thought he had forgotten one hour passed and two and fairfax rose reluctantly to his feet And Kronja was cornered, eh? Well, just wait a minute till I run over to Tantalach.

Because of Fairfax's instructions and the art of war, the tribesmen did not hurl themselves forward boldly and with clamor.

Instead, there was great restraint and self-control, and they were content to advance silently, creeping and crawling from shelter to shelter.

By the riverbank, and partly protected by a narrow open space, crouched the Crees and Voyageurs.

Their eyes could see nothing, and only in vague ways did their ears hear but they felt the thrill of life which ran through the forest the indistinct indefinable movement of an advancing host damn them fairfax muttered they've never faced powder but i taught them the trick avery van brunt laughed knocked the ashes out of his pipe and put it carefully away with the pouch and loosened the hunting knife in its sheath at his hip wait he said we'll wither the face of the charge and break their hearts They'll rush scattered if they remember my teaching.

But, but that was the canoe, and growing up on the lakes and rivers with that.

And then teach-- or university basketball, we're-- the-- our nickname, which we took great pride in, was Voyageur.

Oh, really? Okay.

Yeah.

So it was Voyageur, so canoe-going Frenchman who opened up the, sort of opened up Canada.

But we took great pride in that, in being a voyageur, just hard work, team, you know, and said, "If you're a voyageur like that, that carried a, a lot of weight." But they, they were canoe men, right? And then I come out west, and before I start paddleboarding, in 2006, I was given the name, uh, Ta'm LAN, which was given to me by an elder, uh, Cam's grandmother.

Uh, it means steersman of the canoe.

So Cam's grandmother didn't know that I grew up in northern Ontario with a canoe, didn't know that I played five years basketball for the Voyageurs.