Louise Erdrich - Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country: Traveling Through the Land of My Ancestors

To Ojibwe speakers and language expertsI tried my best to get it right and went over the book in 2002 with Tobasonakwutiban. He told me the words that describe shades of feeling. I spelled them as I heard them. The Ojibwe is a mixture of Canadian and Southern dialects. Any mistakes are mine. The names of plants are found in Plants Used by the Great Lakes Ojibwa , James E. Meeker, Joan E. Elias, John A. Heim. Published by Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Commission. The words for computer and rhinoceros were given to me by Nawiigizisiban, Jim Clark. Again, I spelled them as I heard them, and included them because they are delightful. I would like to thank everyone mentioned in these pages. Miigwech.

Another Journey

The islands and the books still call us every summer. In June 2013 we set out in a newer version of the vana 2005 Honda Odyssey, similarly packed to the gills. It is an innocuous silver gray, like most other cars. One of my daughters calls it the Manatee. I call it the Ark. Inside, there is my daughter Aza, the artist commissioned to make the cover of this book; Kiizh, who is now twelve; and me.

There is also Roadie, the travelin dog, who was born the same year as Kiizh. Roadie has a maniacal devotion to my oldest daughter, Persia, but tolerates me. Roadie is recovering from surgery to her neck. A little white Jack Russell, she looks like a repaired stuffed animal with neat black stitches attaching her head to her busy muscular body. The other dog, Ryoga, has his own story. Named for the black pig of Azas favorite childhood anime series, Ranma , this dog is a graceful wisp of charcoal. Roadie is outraged by his playful sorties. She glares in reproach from her tiny pink bed at the passengers feet.

The many toys Kiizh had on the previous trip have been replaced by electronic devicesiPhone, laptop, iPad, and so on. After the forty-ninth parallel theres no reception, so I let her glut herself with screens for the first few hours. Anyway, we are visiting Persia on the way up north.

Ojibwemotadidaa

To my dear surprise, Persia has become the Ojibwe language leader in the family. For the past four years, she has been doing all she can to become fluent. This is her third summer as coordinator of an immersion Ojibwe language program held at the Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College. For three weeks in the summer and one weekend a month during the school year, absolutely no English is spoken therecell phones and the abovementioned devices are confiscated upon entry. When I visited the program for a weekend last winter I excitedly opened my mouth to speak and found a well of nothingness. After two hours of stilted trying, I went to my room and fell into a dead sleep. My brain had saturated. Thats how the whole weekend went. A few hours of Ojibwemowin, then a dead sleep as my brain cells absorbed conjugations. It is very difficult, people struggle, they cry. But they begin to speak. Persia loves her work.

She gets an evening off to check in with us, and, similarly, falls into a deep sleep in the motel room, clutching Roadie. We plot the rest of our travels. Next morning, we are off. First we go to Canada, but here things take an odd turn. While there we inadvertently, grudgingly, add a baby grackle to the ark.

Bineshiinh Island

This island in Lake of the Woods has innumerable birdhouses and is, like the predator-free zones in New Zealand, only for birds. There are no feral cats because the eagles get them. There are no squirrels because the vigilant owner and keeper of the island relocates themto squirrel heaven. Bineshiinh means bird, and only birds are allowed.

Mergansers, mallards, buffleheads, arctic terns, goldfinches, purple finches, black and white warblers, warblers of many other varieties, rose-breasted and evening grosbeaks, ruby-throated hummingbirds, white-throated sparrows, grouse, blue jays, loons, and grackles.

Why books?

Why grackles?

It is here that we find a fledgling with a broken wing. Aza climbs a ladder and puts him back in the tree, close to his nest. We think the parents, who are still taking care of the other nestlings, might feed him. But although for an entire afternoon the baby grackle emits a hoarse grack as persistent and irritating as the low-battery signal on a smoke alarm, his parents swish around, ignoring him.

They have left him to die, Kiizh says.

Oh god, I think. Nature is harsh. But please dont let me rescue him, because the common grackle is a greedy, opportunistic, feckless, fearless, cold-eyed, only slightly glorified lizard of a bird.

And yet, what would Kiizh do?

Of course as the night comes on, the grack continues. I climb the ladder and scoop up the bird. We bring it in. I show the girls how to feed it. When the mouth opens, push a tiny gob of soft dog food down the gullet with the eraser end of a pencil. Thats how Ive saved crows. Drugged with protein, the nestling drops off. Next morning, this bird is focused. More food. Every few hours. We teach him to drink from a cup. His wing still drags, but he couldnt care less. Hes growing right before our eyes! We daub an antibiotic cream on his wound. I contemplate getting him drunk on a few tablespoons of wine and sewing his wing together. I think my operation might kill him, but I also have a sense that not much can kill a grackle. Hes a dystopic sort of birdgrackles will make it through climate change and every other sort of catastrophe humans throw at wildlife. So he gets his name.

Tenacious G

To get back down to Obers Island, we now have to smuggle a grackle over the Canadian border. We put him in a cardboard grackle box, covered with a Costco bag. He has preempted Ryogas seat. When hungry back there, he grack s. If he grack s at the border crossing, Kiizh plans to pretend to have lost her cell phone. But as I do at all border crossings now, I ask my daughter to take the wheel. No border guard ever troubles Aza, with her splendid eyes and radiant smile. We have the correct papers for the dogs and a bandanna around Roadies neck, so nobody can see that her head is sewed on. The young guard gives us a cursory check and wishes Aza a good, a very good!, day, and we drive to Rainy River.

Island of the Book

We are meeting two friends who were married on this island last year. They have a granddaughter, Sequoia, nearly Kiizhs age. We dont travel lightlybut when Beth Waterhouse, executive director and wise woman of the island, shows up with a sturdy gear-toting vessel, she takes us in stride. She doesnt even raise an eyebrow at Tenacious.

From the first step onto the island, it is obvious that this place has made the right friends. Ten years have made it even better because of hardworking volunteers. The gardens are cheerful and immaculatea huge bed of scarlet poppies is in full fancy-skirted bloom. Obers house and the extraordinary fireplace that houses the spirit of a man named Charlie Friday, Giiwewosaadang, has been lovingly repaired. There is a fancy new Swedish bathroom with framed doggerel and a gate made of a swinging paddle. Each book in the collection has been catalogued, cleaned, repaired, and replaced where Ober left it. The scent of old paper and cedar fills the rooms of each house. The bookcases, some ingeniously hanging from rafters, have been invisibly reinforced.

The scale of the commitment to Ernest Oberholtzers legacy, the intense thought that goes into each invisible improvement on his island, the forthright love, and the welcome. God! It is all so moving that my eyes tear up and I put the grackle on my shoulder to remind me that the world is hard. Grack! We are at home here. Aza chooses her spot in the artists cabin, close to the water, simple, with wooden hooks for her clothing and dappled light. There, over the coming week, she works and reworks the art piece that becomes the new cover of this book.

Asabikeshiinyag