Klee Wyck - Emily Carr [44]
As the canoe glided on, her human cargo was as silent as the cedar-life that once had filled her. She had done with the forest now; when they shoved her into the sea they had dug out her heart. Submissively she accepted the new element, going with the tide.
When tide or wind crossed her she became fractious. Some still element of the forest clung yet to the cedar’s hollow rind which resented the restless push of waves.
Once only during the whole trip were words exchanged in the canoe. The old man, turning to me, said,
“Where you come from?”
“Victoria.”
“Victorlia? Victorlia good place—still. Vancouver, Seattle, lots, lots trouble. Victorlia plenty still.”
It was midnight when the wolf-like nose of our canoe nuzzled up to the landing at Alliford. All the village was dark. Our little group was silhouetted on the landing for one moment while silver passed from my hand to the Indian’s.
“Good-night.”
“Gu-ni’.”
One solitary speck and a huddle of specks moved across the beach, crossed the edge of visibility and plunged into immense night.
Slowly the canoe drifted away from the moonlit landing, till, at the end of her rope, she lay an empty thing, floating among the shadows of an inverted forest.
All Canadian.
All Classics.
The Backwoods of Canada by Catharine Parr Traill
Klee Wyck by Emily Carr
Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie
Settlers of the Marsh by Frederick Philip Grove
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock
For more information about these and other Penguin Classics visit www.penguin.ca/classics
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Foreword
Ucluelet
Tanoo
Skedans
Cumshewa
Sophie
D’So
The Blouse
The Stare
Greenville
Two Bits and a Wheel-Barrow
Sleep
Sailing to Yan
Cha-atl
Wash Mary
Juice
Friends
Martha’s Joey
Salt Water
Century Time
Kitwancool
Canoe
All Canadian