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‘No problem,’ I hollered back in my best New Jersey accent.
‘And one more thing, if you’re goin ta’ Brazil, you goin’ da wrong way. Rio de Janeiro gotta be south a here.’
This was not the last time I would be told I was going the wrong way. Leaving New York, my plan was to cycle north for the Niagara Falls and the Great Lakes before turning west across the country towards the Rocky mountains, on what I decided was the scenic route to Rio, via Toronto and Vancouver.
‘I’m cycling to Brazil,’ I shouted into the empty forest, buoyed with Puerto Rican rice, cheap American beer and naive self-assurance. Enjoying a long New England afternoon I made good time towards Nyack and the ominously named Bear mountain. The wide, slow-moving water of the Hudson river shimmered benevolently in the late afternoon sunshine. The dark green forested banks were dotted with whitewashed, clinker-built colonial houses, once homes to the wealthy merchants who managed the flow of New World commodities, fur, maple syrup, coal and buffalo, into New York. They stood as a reminder of the river’s important role as an artery into the great city I had left behind earlier in the day. In the morning I had battled my way through the busy traffic, kamikaze cab drivers and beeping horns of Manhattan, but out here, cycling along the banks of this historic river, I could have been a thousand miles away from the energy and power of New York City. At last, I was on my way.
It didn’t take long for my confidence to be undermined. The flat roads of the morning ride, which had stretched out before me making comfortable cycling, began to curve round the steep sides of the growing hills that now flanked the valley. The gradients increased and to keep my overloaded, 60-kilo bicycle moving forward became a hard and painful struggle. After leaving the shade of the forest trail, the heat of the afternoon sapped my energy.
I had only planned to spend five nights sleeping on a friend’s couch in the Big Apple, but thanks to Natwest Bank’s complete lack of customer service, and the epicurean charms of the city that never sleeps, I did not leave for five weeks. Any fitness I had gained labouring around Richmond Park had vanished after a lengthy intake of hamburgers, knishes, bagels and street pizzas, combined with late nights and riotous living. Now I was paying for it, hunched over my handlebars, dripping with sweat, making miserably slow work of the short journey to my first night’s goal, Nyack State Park, where I hoped I might be able to pitch camp.
NYACK STATE PARK CLOSED STRICTLY NO OVERNIGHT CAMPING!
If a squadron of mosquitoes hadn’t been feasting on every bit of tasty skin that wasn’t wrapped in sweat-drenched clothing, and if the tired muscles in my legs had not been contracting in complaint at their unexpected new existence, I might have obeyed the friendly sign that greeted me at the gates of the state park. Yet as the last minutes of twilight began to give way to gathering darkness and a distant growl of thunder warned me of the weather to come, I decided to risk the wrath of an angry park ranger and wheeled my heavy load up the last hill of the day. Finding a little corner of grass hidden between a large rock and a malodorous public toilet, I set about pitching camp. Pre-trip daydreams had been buoyed with romantic ideas about camping in the moonlight on the banks of foreign rivers, grilling fish over an open fire, but being able to count my previous nights under canvas on one hand, I was about to find out how immature this boy’s own fantasy was.
‘Ultra light’ it declared on the bright label of my brand-new one-man tent as I pulled it from its tidy little nylon bag and rolled it out on the grass. Could have been a bit fucking lighter if you ask me, I muttered, while trying to decipher the complicated Swedish instruction manual.
‘Grattis, du är nu den stolte ägaren av ett nytt tält’
The annoyingly efficient-looking Swede in the pictures instructed me that my first job was to link up the two sausage-strings of shiny, metal poles. Once connected, they had to be slid into their relevant holes before the whole tent could be pegged down. This was not dissimilar to knitting with a pair of eight-foot needles, but I managed, with an adequate amount of swearing and loss of temper, while being perpetually pestered by the biting and high-pitched whine of every blood-sucking insect in New York State, to get the right bits in the right places. And, as if by magic, my new home rose miraculously out of the ground.
It hadn’t looked that small when I performed a dry-run erection on the living-room floor of the pokey, one-bedroom flat in London where I had lived for the last five years. But now, dwarfed by the immense trees and the public toilets of Nyack State Park, it looked pathetic. A London estate agent would have described it as ‘compact and with a clever use of space’, but as I climbed inside there was no escaping the fact that my accommodation for the next two years was inconveniently petite.
To rest my bones at the end of a hard day in the saddle, I had also invested in an expensive, ultra-light, self-inflating camping mattress. It too lived in an efficient nylon bag and, once removed, it unrolled itself like an asthmatic woodlouse, wheezing pathetically as it tried to ‘self-inflate’.
That’s it?
At that price, I had hoped that a plump and bouncy airbed would expand before my eyes, but instead a small, bright orange piece of foam that looked about as comfortable as a doormat materialised in front of me. ‘Tat-tat, tat-tat-tat.’ The sound of rain drumming away on the tightly-stretched nylon that now surrounded me didn’t help lift my sinking mood. I made a dash through the escalating downpour to rescue my panniers and other bits of equipment, before retreating back into my bunker, soaking wet, to begin making plans for supper. My first-night fantasies of an open fire were literally washed away, and instead I would have to fire-up the most exciting item hidden in my bags. The camp stove.
I have no doubt that if you find yourself stuck on a freezing mountain at high altitude, somewhere in the Himalayas, and you fancy a quick cuppa, a high-octane jet engine is just the job for melting a few litres of snow and getting a good brew on, but if all you want to do is reheat some Puerto Rican rice and a couple of sausages, the violent little object I was now unpacking is completely unsuitable. Faced with a confusing set-up of metal cables and a bright red fuel tank that looked as if they were part of a bomb-making kit worthy of Al Qaeda, I unpacked the new toy that would cook my supper. Carefully following the English instructions, I obediently tweaked the levers and pumped the pumps. My shiny lightweight aluminium pots and pans were loaded with leftovers. I struck a match.
Booom—whooooooooosh!
A yellow flame filled the entrance of my tent. My eyebrows sent out a smell of singed hair and, reeling back, I looked on in horror at the angry little object now roaring away with a ferocious blue flame in the tent porch. It seemed more suitable for stripping paint than cooking a light supper. Acrid black smoke invaded my living space. I plucked up enough courage to turn the thing off, then scraped away at the inedible burnt offerings welded to the bottom of my pans. I had to admit that the Hungry Cyclist’s first night in the great outdoors hadn’t quite gone to plan. I turned in, dirty, disheartened, dishevelled and hungry, wondering how and why I had given up a comfortable London life, an agreeable career in advertising and a beautiful girlfriend to be here alone, eating burnt sausages, camped next to a public toilet, in the pouring rain somewhere in New York State.
The following morning I awoke in the claustrophobic conditions of my nylon coffin, exhausted. I had all the gear but evidently I had no idea what I was doing. I climbed out of my tent, bleary-eyed, stiff and despondent. Strange calls and scratching had distracted me throughout the night and I had enjoyed little sleep. I needed coffee, and after rolling up my wet tent, gathering my belongings and getting back on the bike, I went in search of someone who might sell me one. Ten kilometres outside Nyack I found a busy café attached to a gas station. At just before six in the morning, it was full of dusty truck drivers and delivery men.
‘Sit wherever you can find a spot, darling,’ called a waitress busy filling coffee cups from a glass percolator jug.
But instead of taking a seat I headed straight for the rest room. I brushed my teeth, washed my face in the basin and took a sad look at the drained face that appeared in the mirror. I felt weak, demoralised and nauseous.
What am I doing?
The state I was in, I would have let somebody steal my bicycle, but I still found a booth next to the window where I could keep half an eye on my worldly possessions propped up in the parking lot. I ordered a tall stack of pancakes, which arrived dripping in maple syrup, and downed cup after cup of bitter coffee while I laid out my damp map on the table and made a plan for the day.
Now where am I? Nyack, Nyack, Nyack—here!
It took a few seconds to find the small red dot that signified where I was, and when I did, it was completely soul-destroying. In a day that had left me feeling physically and mentally drained, I had cycled no further than two-thirds of the width of my little finger. A pathetic thirty-seven miles. Looking north, the Canadian border and the Great Lakes were a stretched hand away. If I carried on at this pace Toronto would take two to three weeks and Rio de Janeiro was clearly impossible.
The next week was the stuff of nightmares. I was unfit, underprepared and it was very hot. The sun woke me from my tent every morning and soon became a merciless tormentor as I struggled further north into the Catskill mountains of Upstate New York. The rich landscape of pine-carpeted mountains and placid lakes should have been breathtaking but I had no breath to spare. As each day of hard labour came to an end, I was greeted with another uncomfortable broken night’s sleep in my reeking tent, before having to start all over again at sunrise.
More than seven years of a nine-to-five existence in London had left me completely unsuited to the hardships of life on the road. However I cut it, pushing a ridiculously heavy weight up a mountain in 30-plus degrees just wasn’t fun. I was meant to be revelling in a newfound freedom. This was about as far from freedom as I could imagine. Dragging an oversized ball and chain disguised as a bicycle and trapped within a strange alter ego that called himself the Hungry Cyclist, I was meant to be cycling the Americas in search of interesting food and digging up local recipes. Instead I was surviving on chocolate bars, fizzy drinks and whatever else I could get my hands on at the sporadic gas stations that lined my route. I barely had the energy or enthusiasm to open a tin of beans. The Hungry Cyclist and his dream were both falling apart.
‘Buy me; buy me,’ called rusty station wagons parked in driveways.
‘Take me, take me, look at my powerful motor,’ goaded shiny, chrome-covered motorcycles with their fluorescent ‘For Sale’ signs.
And how easy it would have been to quit. To cash in my bicycle, dump the panniers and go on a real road trip in the land of the motorcar. The raw chafing between my legs would be a thing of the past. I could kiss goodbye to my aching buttocks and throw away my dirty, sweat-stained clothes. Covering as little as thirty-five miles a day, against the hundred I had projected, no more than a soul-destroying centimetre on my tatty map, I was making slow, painful progress on my way to Ithaca and the Finger Lakes. But as the long days and short nights gradually ticked over, the hills slowly became easier. It was revealing to see how body and mind learnt to deal with life on a bicycle, and I came to terms with the fact that this journey would not happen in the way I had imagined it would. After an initial few weeks of pain and suffering, I arrived in the town of Buffalo, famed for its chicken wings and the Niagara Falls. It was here that I would cross into Canada. I had cycled some five hundred miles after leaving New York. I was feeling fit, I was sleeping, I could operate my camping stove and I was almost having fun.
I was a cowboy. My sister was an Indian, hiding at the bottom of the garden in her wigwam that smelt of wet socks, doing whatever seven-year-old East Anglian girl Indians did. I would creep stealthily through the unkempt grass, in my finest hat, with a six-shooter at the ready, primed for an ambush.
‘Yeeeeeeeeeeee ha!’ Pow! Snap! Pow! Snap! Bursting into her peaceful camp, guns blazing, I ruthlessly fired off reels of pink caps while she ran for the cover of home, slapping the palm of her hand against her mouth, doing her best to warn me off with an unconvincing war-cry.
But cap guns and cowboy hats were soon replaced by a Walkman and a mountain bike, and the only contact I had with Indians was limited to over-imaginative, lustful thoughts provoked by Disney’s buckskin-clad, leggy recreation of Pocahontas. As I matured a little, Daniel Day Lewis running bare-chested through the mountains of Upstate New York in his moccasins and Kevin Costner soulfully pursuing herds of buffalo across the Dakotas provided me with a little insight into the native tribes of the Americas. But shamefully, as I arrived on banks of the Great Lakes, apart from childhood and Hollywood fantasies I knew nothing about the great and tragic history of the land I was now cycling through.
Moving further into Ontario, surrounded by the waters of lakes Huron, Ontario and Michigan, it was clear I was in Indian country. Eagle feathers and dream catchers now hung from the rear-view mirrors of pick-up trucks, whose ‘Support our Troops’ bumper stickers also declared ‘Proud to be Indian’. The patriotic posters that portrayed dust-covered New York firemen emerging from falling rubble under a red, white and blue Stars and Stripes, declaring ‘These Colors Don’t Run’, no longer adorned the graffiti-covered doors of gas station toilets. Instead, dreamy, sepia-toned images of old men wrapped in blankets with feathers on their heads, gazing at the horizon, proclaimed you should ‘Do what you know to be right’. But instead of taking their advice, buying a car and racing to Vegas, I continued cycling up the Bruce Peninsula that bisects the shallow waters of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay.
A popular summer destination for those escaping the sweltering city heat of Toronto, the Bruce Peninsula’s picturesque towns were well prepared for this seasonal boom. Pretty clinker-built houses, once home to wealthy fur traders, were converted into twee bed and breakfasts. Organic cafés, decorated with wind-chimes and lesbians, sold overpriced cups of coffee, and the famous Great Lakes ‘white fish and chips’ seemed to be sold in every one of the restaurants. Holidaying Ontarian families, towing caravans in long convoys up the Peninsula main road, licked ice creams and stared into the backs of digital cameras, but on the side of the road, the vendors sitting in part-time stands next to the highway selling wood carvings of eagles, feather-decorated dream catchers, buckskin moccasins and bags of wild rice to the passing trade told of deeper tradition in this bountiful corner of eastern Canada. Arriving in the port town Tobermory, given its name by Scottish fur traders, I caught the last ferry to Manitoulin Island. With my bike tied up below deck of the Chi-Cheemaun (big canoe) with the motorhomes and caravans, I sat above in the cool evening air watching the wake of the boat rip open the glassy skin of Lake Huron and began to feel thoroughly ashamed of my historical ignorance. I decided to take the very first opportunity to swot up on the First Nation culture of the Great Lakes. The next morning, after camping on the banks of the lake and full of campfire coffee, I rode to the Manitoulin Island cultural visitor centre for an education.
An impressive building with heavy wooden beams and a triangular roof, the centre provided me with vital information about how to stretch a tribal drum and weave a fish trap, and also gave me a potted history of the area I was in. I was in Ojibwa country, the largest and most powerful of the Great Lakes tribes and considered by many to be the most powerful in the North American continent. Occupying the lands around the Great Lakes and stretching as far west as North Dakota, the Ojibwa lived far enough north to have avoided the early flow of migration from Europe, but by the late eighteenth century they found themselves too close to the rapidly expanding trading posts of the Hudson Bay Company, and they were soon engulfed in a fur trade that was turning the Great Lakes into a war zone between the English and the French.
Beaver skins were big money back in Europe, and as demand for this New World commodity grew, the old rivals fought heavily to control the rivers, lakes and ports of the region. As outstanding hunters and trappers, the Ojibwa were unwittingly caught up in the Fur Wars, which continued well into the nineteenth century. Treaties were signed, alliances formed, alliances broken, and tribes were pitted against each other to best feed the appetites of smart Londoners and Parisians, who could not live without their fashionable beaver top hats. The Ojibwa traded with their new European invaders and, although the weapons brought wealth and power, the Ojibwa soon became dependent on French and English goods. The introduction of gunpowder, alcohol and smallpox would change the Great Lakes for ever. Changes in fashion brought a welcome end to the fur trade, but it was only replaced by a new hunger for lumber, copper and white fish, which tempted more Europeans to the area, where they pursued a policy of deforestation and overfishing that emptied the ancient woodlands and lakes of their harvest.
Like after any good museum visit, I found myself in the shop browsing for postcards, novelty pens, key fobs, moccasins and dream catchers, but to my excitement I also discovered a traditional Ojibwa recipe book. Until now the only regional dish I had found that Ontarians were at all proud of was poutine, a clumsy bastardisation of a French dish, consisting of a heap of greasy chips, topped with lumpy gravy and some rubbery cheese curds, normally sold from the hatch of a converted ambulance and served on a flimsy polystyrene platter. It had all the charm and sophistication of a late-night kebab. So to browse recipes of such exotic treats as beaver tail soup, boiled moose nose, white fish livers and manoomin (wild rice) was an exhilarating experience. As I left, the kind woman who sold me the book called after me to tell me that the Sagamok Anishinabek annual traditional pow-wow was being held at the weekend, and if I was lucky I might well be able to taste some of this traditional native fare.
Following the north shore of Lake Huron, I cycled deeper into the barren landscape of Ontario. Small one-café towns, surviving on the logging industry, provided well-needed breaks from the never-ending tarmac of Highway 17, romantically known as the TransCanada Highway. After two days I turned off this noisy road, which flowed with fume-belching logging trucks and made happy time along the pothole-infested back roads that wound their way under towering russet rockfaces and along the banks of placid lakes. Riding in silence, apart from my heart beat and the whoosh of my spinning wheels, I was alone. My imagination, overfed on Spaghetti Westerns, began to work overtime. I peered up at the cliffs flanking the roads and squirmed at the haunted calls and ominous shapes of the patient turkey vultures circling overhead. Rocks tumbling down precipices were no doubt misplaced by the warring redskin scouts who crept up on their bellies, primed to puncture me with arrows, and I could see the angular features of ancient warrior chiefs in every shadow and rock formation that surrounded me.
An hour before sunset I was still thirty miles away from where I hoped I would find my pow-wow and so decided to call it a day and cover the rest of the distance in the morning. A couple of miles along a disused, rust-stained railway track I hit on a good spot to camp, perched above the steep, rocky banks of Silver Lake. Hot and dirty after a day in the saddle, I stripped off, scrambled naked to the lake’s edge and plunged into the cold clear water for a resurrecting swim. Before darkness fell I had failed to catch a fish for supper, but I had gathered enough wood for a small fire and prepared some lentils that had been soaking in one of my water bottles since the morning. The fire kept out the crisp chill of night and under a clear sky I lay back alone in this vast landscape. The mocking laughter of loons echoed across the calm waters shimmering in the moonlight. At long last my bicycle was giving me real freedom, allowing me to find this perfect place, but after a month on the road I felt alone. For the first but not the last time I began to wish I had someone to share it with. It seemed a waste having it all by myself.
At sunrise I restarted my fire, brewed some coffee and cooked some oats before packing up, clicking my panniers into place and returning to the road. I did my best to make good time, before it got too hot, on a twisty road that ran between jagged rockfaces and thickets of tall pine. It wasn’t until midday that I caught a glimpse of another human being. He was perched behind the wheel of a rusty old pick-up and wore a black felt hat that covered his long dark hair, which was stretched tight over his ears and gathered in a tidy ponytail behind. I offered a raised hand of acknowledgement, but the angular native features of the man did not flinch and he rolled slowly past until the mechanical clanking of his engine disappeared into the silence. Minutes later a beaten-up station wagon stuffed with several generations pulled alongside. Its occupants peered at me from the windows with blank, unwelcoming expressions.
SACRED GROUND OF THE OJIBWA SAGAMOK. STRICTLY NO DRUGS AND NO ALCOHOL.
Following the two vehicles I arrived at a clearing of dry, yellow grass on a small hill that looked out across the endless waters and small islands of Lake Huron. It may well have been sacred. It was certainly beautiful. A cool breeze swept off the lake and mingled in the leaves of the slender trees that cast long shadows towards the back of the clearing, where a line of twenty or so rusty vehicles was parked in the shade.
In the centre of this sacred ground a busy group of men and women were constructing some kind of circular shelter from felled trees. Their work filled the afternoon with the energetic sounds of hammering, chopping and sawing, but they stopped, one by one, and put down their tools to look at the English cyclist standing nervously under his Union Jack flag. I looked on, questioning whether I should be here. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, a large-framed man approached me. He was dressed in tired blue jeans and a black T-shirt with a wolf’s face peering out from the middle.
‘You’re here for the pow-wow?’ he asked in a deep and flat tone. ‘Camp over there. No drugs. No alcohol. The grand entry begins at seven.’
Still feeling the stares of a hundred pairs of eyes, I wheeled my bike clumsily towards a shady cluster of trees where a few more nylon domes had already been erected, and picked a good spot with a beautiful view across the waters of Lake Huron. I got my tent up quickly. I had become good at it, just like the little man in the instruction manual, and I got a strange sense of satisfaction out of being organised and efficient. By now it was the middle of the afternoon and, after making the most of a small picnic of two squashed bread rolls, a tomato and some uninspiring packaged ham, I lay back on the soft grass, rested my head on my rolled-up sleeping bag and shut my eyes. With the warmth of the sun on my face I began to enjoy my weekend.
‘If you need to wash I am going to the lake.’
A deep voice woke me from my blissful slumber. I opened my eyes to the vision of a large bare-chested Indian towering over me holding a towel and a bar of soap. Without his wolf T-shirt it took me a few moments of sleepy confusion to recognise the man casting a long shadow across my body. He turned and walked away. I gathered the pathetic piece of material that had been sold to me as a quick-dry camping towel and jogged to catch up.
‘My name’s Tom.’
‘John,’ he replied. I had half expected him to be called Jumping Salmon or Silver Wolf.
I followed him in silence along a dusty tree-lined track to a small beach on the reedy, marshy banks of the lake. Our arrival was announced by a pair of ducks that burst out of a cluster of wild rice and scrambled across the surface of the water before taking off and flying into the distance. John took off his jeans, his white trainers and untied his ponytail. Standing naked, his long dark hair, which had been pulled in a smooth dome over his head, fell around his thick neck and muscular back like a curtain. He waded into the water and, after muttering some form of blessing, quietly sank his large frame beneath the surface, sending out no more than a few soft ripples. I peeled off my clammy Lycra, got out of my whiffy T-shirt and, feeling shamefully naked, quickly scuttled into the shallows. We both swam a little and the cool water seemed to wash away not only the dust and sweat of the last week’s cycling, but also my tiredness and uncertainty. In an attempt to break the silence and show off the knowledge I had recently gained in the museum, I asked, ‘What does the word “ojibwa” mean?’
‘In the language of Ojibwa it means to pucker.’
John went on to tell me that the Ojibwa were given their name for the unique shape of their footwear, a buckskin moccasin whose edges ‘puckered up’ when sewn together. While I was wondering where I might be able to get my hands on a pair of these shoes, he went on with a second, more disturbing theory.
‘There are those who believe it originated from a torturing technique used by the Ojibwa warriors who roasted their captives over fires until their skin puckered up under the extreme heat. Catch!’
John tossed me the soap and disappeared beneath the surface.
We walked back to the sacred ground in silence until the stillness of the afternoon gradually filled with the happy noise of the camp: the hammering of tent pegs, the chopping of wood, the calls of children playing. We climbed the last small hill and I looked out across the scene before me. The conical forms of traditional wigwams as tall as trees, children chasing each other through the encampment, men and women admiring each other’s feathered headdresses, elders surrounded by eager listeners, a makeshift arena of planks and branches, and a busy group of women gathered around huge metal pots which hung above small fires filling the warm evening air with tidy plumes of smoke. I had to try and ignore the shiny chrome bumpers on the pick-up trucks, the unnatural forms of garish nylon tents, the baseball caps and the jeans, but looking out it was a scene from a childhood dream. I was looking at a real Indian camp and I was relieved that the fires being carefully tended and loaded with chopped wood were not puckering up captives. Instead they were heating cauldrons of bubbling chillied beef and wild rice.
Wild rice, also known as manoomin, which translates as the ‘good berry’ in Ojibwa, has played a major role in the lives of Ojibwa people for thousands of years. According to Ojibwa oral tradition, they were instructed to find the place where ‘the food grows on the water’ during their long migration from the east coast. This led them to the shores of the Great Lakes, where flowing fields of manoomin were found in abundance. Seen as a gift from the Creator, manoomin became a healthy staple in the Ojibwa diet. When harvested correctly, wild rice could be stored for long periods of time to be available when other foods were not. Besides being basic to the traditional diet, manoomin also developed cultural and spiritual resonance and remains an important element in many feasts and ceremonies today.
‘The Sagamok Ojibwa tribal council welcomes all nations to the annual traditional pow-wow. Please join us for the opening feast. The grand entry will begin at seven,’ screeched an announcement through the unsophisticated tannoy system. This triggered a scramble as people poured out of tents and rushed towards the small fires of the makeshift kitchen. Trestle tables laden with food were attacked by a growing swarm of women and children helping themselves to the food on offer. Paper plates were piled high with wild rice and deep ladles of steaming chilli on top of a golden hunk of Indian taco, a skillet-fried flat bread which was a staple among many of the Great Lakes tribes and given the name bannock bread by Scottish fur traders. It wasn’t the feast of plump beaver’s tail and boiling moose nose I had been hoping for, but I was hungry, I was happy and I was excited to be here at my first Native American pow-wow.
In the jargon-filled world of my previous existence in advertising, a pow-wow was an informal term for another dreary meeting, but its origins are deeply rooted in the Native American culture. Deriving from the Algonquin term ‘pau-wau’, which referred to a gathering of medicine men and spiritual leaders, it was anglicised to ‘pow-wow’ by the first European settlers. However, for the numerous plains tribes of North America and Canada, the Blackfoot, the Sioux, the Cheyenne and the Ojibwa, pow-wows were an important opportunity to gather together, trade, dance, celebrate and continue their culture, and eat.
Today the pow-wow circuit is in good shape and throughout the summer months traditional and competition pow-wows are held all over the continent. Competition pow-wows provide an opportunity for dancers, drummers and singers to perform for prestigious awards and big prize money. But the pow-wow circuit has not always been so healthy. Unsatisfied that starvation, land clearance and the introduction of western epidemics such as smallpox had done enough to decimate the indigenous tribes of the Americas, the invading white man, in all his wisdom, decided to prohibit the gathering of more than five native men in any one place at any one time. Afraid that any such meeting would lead to some kind of uprising, the American and Canadian governments imposed the Potlatch Laws of 1851 and 1857, which all but ended the traditional ceremonies that were vital to the survival of Native American culture, and saw the beginning of a generation of cultural prohibition. Clandestine pow-wows still took place but it wasn’t until 1934 in the USA and 1951 in Canada that the respective governments were satisfied that Native American culture had been sufficiently weakened to no longer be a threat, and the Potlatch Laws were repealed.
I perched on a comfortable log on the edge of the arena, happily digesting my wild rice, chilli and Indian taco, as the dull thud of a large drum resonated in the air. The master of ceremonies announced the opening of the pow-wow across the tannoy system that crackled and squeaked from huge conical speakers hung in the trees. It was time for the ‘grand entry’, and the group of men seated around the large circular drum in the centre of the arena began to accompany the melodic beat with ululating tribal wailing.
The eerie noise grew in intensity, filling the sacred ground, and the crowd of about a hundred men, women and children seated around the makeshift arena took to their feet. In the falling dusk an opening prayer of single syllables was offered in Ojibwa, and those not wearing eagle feathers were asked to remove their head gear. My malodorous Boston Red Sox baseball cap had to come off. A line of dancers entered the sacred circle, led by elders and veterans proudly bearing flags and staffs: the Stars and Stripes, the Union Jack, the Canadian flag, signs of respect for Ojibwa braves who served their countries in Vietnam and the two world wars (where Canadian soldiers fought under the British flag). They were followed by the black, yellow, white and red inter-tribal Native flag, and then the mystical-looking eagle staffs adorned with feathers, eagle skulls and animal pelts, which represented a deeper allegiance, unknown to me.
Behind the elders came an energetic line of younger men dressed from head to toe in beads, pelts, buckskin and ornate displays of turkey fans and eagle feathers. They shook gourds and banged small drums. They shuffled forward, adding sporadic high kicks that threw dust into the air, while spinning deliriously in what looked like a pagan drug-induced haze. Dancers decorated in long grass dresses and fringes, which shook as if the wind was blowing through them, flowed behind, and every shell and every feather of the men’s traditional dress seemed to follow the leading beat of the drum that kept this mass of colour and energy moving.
Native women and children now entered the arena. Their turquoise tunics hung with leather thongs, shells and tin cones that rattled and jingled sweetly in time with their slow and graceful movements. They carried delicate fans of goose feathers that twisted and turned in their fingers as they moved around the arena, skipping lightly in their Ojibwa moccasins. The drum beat changed and new drum groups were introduced and new dances announced: the corn dance, the trot, the crow hop, the horse-stealing song and the round dance.
More and more people took to their feet, and the arena became a confusion of black turkey feathers, bear claws, eagle masks, black-and-white skunk pelts, beaver skins, immaculate woven headdresses and the natural earth colours painted on the faces. As darkness fell the moon rose out of the water of the great lake and the tribal drum was still being hit. My initial anxiety and my English inhibitions slowly evaporated with every beat. I took to my feet and I began to shuffle gently in a small circle, and as my confidence grew I began to spin. I turned faster and faster, the drum controlling my every move, and I swayed forwards and backwards, catching glimpses of other dancers and costumes that flashed out of the shadows and spurts of firelight. The primitive beat resonated and invaded my system and I spontaneously began to wail like a brave.
The singing, dancing and drumming continued. In the moonlight I walked back to my tent and, untroubled by the usual frenzy of mosquitoes, put my head back on my sleeping bag and enjoyed the cool breeze that washed through this sacred and ancient place. The distant melodic pounding of the central drum continued to swell into the night, but far from being a disturbance, it was as if I was listening to a deep and distant heartbeat, while the haunting wailing of the singers carried into the star-filled sky. No words, no apparent plan, just the natural calling of grown men transfixed, concentrated, and singing as one. Their feelings translated into one true sound that needed no words to describe the sentiments and insights being expressed. Beauty, pride, honour, bravery, respect and the tragedy of the mighty Ojibwa people. This strange, abstract, wordless noise that had so much more meaning, more depth than words could ever convey, lulled me and I slept.
In the morning the pow-wow would pack up. The magnificent wigwams would come down. The traditional costumes would be packed away and the arena dismantled. One hundred and fifty years ago the Ojibwa would have finished their harvest of wild rice and maple syrup and moved west towards the buffalo-filled plains of the Dakotas. In the morning I too would roll up my shiny wigwam, pack a bag of wild rice and begin my journey west towards the Dakotas, the Midwest and cowboy country.
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
Black Crow
Puerto Rican Rice
Serves 4
200g dried pigeon peas (black-eyed peas will do) 100g salt pork (or bacon), chopped into small pieces small onion, chopped 2 garlic cloves, crushed 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded and chopped small 1 green bell pepper, cored, seeded and chopped small 2 tom atoes, chopped 350ml chicken or ham stock 1 tablespoon annatto (achiote) oil 200g long-grain rice salt and freshly ground black pepper to garnish: cilantro (coriander), chopped chillies and limes
1 In a small pot, bring the pigeon peas and 700ml water to the boil. Cover, turn off the heat and allow to stand for 1 hour. Drain the peas,.
2 In a deep pan, sauté the salt pork, onion and garlic in the olive oil for a few minutes.
3 Add both bell peppers, cover and cook over a medium heat until the onion begins to turn transparent.
4 Add the tomato, drained pigeon peas and stock. Simmer, covered, over a low heat for 15 minutes until the peas are almost tender and most of the liquid is absorbed.
5 Stir in the annatto oil, rice, black pepper and 500ml cold water. Return to the boil then simmer, covered, for 15-20 minutes until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is soft and tender.
6 Add salt to taste and mix through a handful of chopped fresh cilantro, some diced chilli and a good squeeze of fresh lime.
Beaver Tail Soup
Serves 6
bones and tail from 1 beaver 2 large onions, sliced 3 bay leaves 2 large carrots, chopped 4 garlic cloves, chopped salt and freshly ground black pepper to garnish: sprigs of fresh mint
1 First you need to remove the tough skin from the beaver tail. This is done by toasting the tail over an open flame until the scaly skin peels off in one blistered sheet. This will reveal the tasty white meat underneath. Cut the tail meat into chunks.
2 Place the bones and pieces of tail in a large deep pan, cover with water (at least 2 litres), add a teaspoon of salt and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes, keeping the surface clean with a large spoon.
3 Add the onions, bay leaves, carrots, garlic and 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, and keep simmering for a further 30 minutes.
4 With a large spoon, remove the chunks of beaver tail from the pan and leave to drain on a plate. Don’t worry: these will be added back to the soup later. Carefully strain the remaining soup through a sieve into another large pan, being sure to remove any bits of bone. Now continue to boil until the soup reduces to roughly half of its original volume.
5 While the soup is reducing, cut the tail meat into bite-size chunks and add to the soup. Serve hot, making sure everyone gets some chunky bits of beaver in their bowl, and garnish with a few sprigs of fresh mint.
Chapter 2 (#uf3841516-5964-578b-b420-1ef591850d55)
Rodeo Ga Ga (#uf3841516-5964-578b-b420-1ef591850d55) COWBOYS, CRITTERS AND BEAUTY QUEENS IN AMERICA’S MIDWEST
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys.
Don’t let ’em pick guitars or drive them old trucks.
Let ’em be doctors and lawyers and such.
‘Son, I drove cross-country once. The boredom near killed me.’
Plucking a couple of dollar bills from the pocket of his dishevelled checked shirt and tossing them on to the table as if placing a bet in a Vegas casino, the substantial man sitting in front of me then poured the remainder of his coffee into the mouth I had just witnessed demolish a breakfast large enough to feed a small nation for a month.
‘But good luck to you all the same and God bless.’
He began to leave the diner booth we were sharing. No mean feat for a man of his size, who had to lever himself up on both hands while sliding a few inches sideways. But following three strenuous manoeuvres he was on his feet. He picked up his foam-fronted trucker’s hat, pierced with the colourful feathers of prized fishing flies, and pulled it on to his round balding head.
‘Thank ya, darlin’.’
‘You enjoy your weekend, Pete.’
My eyes followed him through the rain-lashed windows as he did his best to hurry through the torrential downpour, dodging puddles on his way to a large brown and yellow pick-up truck. The engine rumbled into life, the windscreen wipers began their repetitive routine and he rolled out towards the highway. ‘Born to Fish. Forced to Work’ announced the sticker attached to his rear window. He waited for a juggernaut to thunder past, kicking up a violent swirling storm of surface water, rain and wind.
‘What can I get you, darling?’
‘A Hungry Trucker’s Breakfast, please.’
