One issue--I'm uncertain if Francois is from the early 1800s or the late 1700s; I'd thought it was the latter, though this journal dates it to the former. Ah well. Please see "Stranger In A Strange Land" for the short story behind this.
Not too oddly, I have a more recent (2007) version of this idea--this first entry here is told in shortened form, but there are additional entries--which I'm not going to be posting here just yet, seeing as I'd like to resume the project and perhaps sometime post it with my Manitou Island writing.
14 June 18--
Today a most strange thing happened, which I felt I must put down in writing before the events have been hopelessly forgotten. I am glad I brought this journal with me today, rather than leave it behind as I had originally planned to do, seeing as things went so drastically different from the way I had expected them to.
I set out in my canoe just after daybreak to reach Michilimackinac Island as I have intended to return there for some time now, having some business pending. I have not been there in quite a while due to events on the mainland and so had some matters to settle. There was a great fog settled upon the Straits but this sort of thing has never deterred me before, as I know my way there well enough, and lack of visibility has never succeeded in throwing me off course. The island is not a far stretch away, and easy to reach should one be skilled enough with a canoe.
Despite this I seemed to lose my way somewhat, as it took me longer than I had expected, but then the great hump of the island finally appeared out of the fog and I headed for it. I puzzled over the fact that it had taken me longer than usual to reach it but stranger things have happened, and this seemed least among them.
I then noticed that the only thing I could hear was seagulls overhead and along the beach, when I should have heard the people of the island already at work, as the small town upon its south shore is always busy and active, yet no such sounds reached me. Perhaps the fog muffled them? But this could not be so either, for where there should have been the houses and buildings along the main street, there was now nothing at all, not even a road. Not a human nor a horse stirred anywhere; it was as if none had ever lived upon the island. I thought briefly that perhaps some calamity had befallen them, but I've never known buildings to vanish without the least bit of a trace, and there were not even signs of a struggle. An entire town simply cannot vanish so thoroughly, in such a short time; for I had spoken lately with the other traders on the mainland and according to them, the island and its town had been doing just fine. There had not even been any signs of unrest upon it recently, which was one reason why I had decided to set out for it.
All of this conflicting information greatly disturbed me but I decided to pull up to shore anyway, despite the lack of a place to dock, and pulled my canoe ashore behind me. Just as it had looked from the water, there was no sign of civilization anywhere. Even where the great fort should have been upon the bluff, there was just the bluff itself, with the slightest hint of a trail heading off beside it into the forest. I could not tell if this was worn by human or animal feet but decided to see which it was for myself. I made certain my canoe was steady over my head and took this path up into the trees, toward the east bluff, to see what else had changed about the island.
I do not know exactly what I had expected to find, if anything, but there were definite trails here, greater than those usually made by animals, although I still saw no houses. At some point though I did feel myself being watched and looked just in time to see something dart behind a tree. I stopped and awaited its reappearance and certainly enough it did reappear, and I saw that it was a young native girl, with a feather in her hair and the strangest green eyes. I have heard of the colonies in the earlier days of this country, which disappeared without a trace, and the stories of natives with the strange blue eyes who appeared for years afterward, yet this island could not have possibly been abandoned long enough for such a thing to happen. Still I could not help but stare at those odd eyes. This girl seemed just as curious of me as I was of her, and even stepped out of her hiding space to take a better look at me. I sense she thought I was just as strange as I thought she was. She seemed reluctant to speak or come forward, and so I managed to entice her with a gift of a Petoskey Stone, at which she came out and accepted it, and I was able to speak with her.
When I asked her where she lived, she responded in my own language, perfectly, without even an accent; I was just about to ask her how she knew French, when she asked me how it was that I knew her language. I know the language of the natives, yet it is not my primary tongue, and I do not go about speaking it without reason; for some reason, I had not even thought of conversing with her in her own tongue. Such a lapse is odd on my part, but as I said, today was already an odd day. As it was, it looked as if the use of such a language was not needed, as we both clearly understood one another although we must have been speaking different languages. She did not seem to know or care for an explanation why. She was quite precocious for such a young girl, and even expressed interest in my skin color, stating that I resembled a newborn rabbit. She found my own name and appearance amusing, and I learned that her name was "Silver Eagle Feather." She was somewhat reluctant, again, to show me to her tribe, yet relented and led the way through the woods in the direction of the east bluff.
I soon after entered a small camp of perhaps a few dozen persons, all of them native; by their dress and living spaces I would have had to assume they were Chippewa, although when they spoke, again it was as if we spoke in the same tongue. They expressed surprise at my appearance, and responded in different ways, although none struck me as hostile; some showed fear, while others showed curiosity, and several even came to more closely inspect my person. They did not even refrain from reaching out and touching me as if expecting me to vanish like a ghost; when they started to look at my personal belongings I let them, as it can be considered an affront to prevent them from doing so. Silver Eagle Feather, who had disappeared, soon returned, with an elder man in tow, and I could tell by his clothing and demeanor that he must be important in the tribe, perhaps a medicine man; the girl addressed him as Grandfather. He, too, was surprised to see me, and everyone expressed even greater confusion on hearing that I was from the mainland, as apparently they have not received any visitors from the mainland in quite a long while. I was even asked if I were a manitou, one of the principal spirits of these people, at which I had to say no, which seemed to relieve them somewhat. This old man, whose name was given as "Two Owls," was just as perplexed about our shared language, and even he could not explain it. He confirmed that they have not received visitors in many years, and that when last they did, they were of their own people, and not mine; I was the first of my own kind that they had ever seen. When I explained how I had come through the fog and nearly lost my way, it caused a great deal of excitement, and another man, this one younger but also dressed and bearing the appearance of a medicine man, came forward, exclaiming that the fog around the island has been known to do strange things to those who pass through it; apparently some of their own have been lost in it in the past, and have never returned. This conversation did not go very far before it was interrupted, and I did not learn more.
I asked of Two Owls what the name of this strange island was, as I was strongly suspecting now that I had not reached Michilimackinac after all, despite this island's exactly identical appearance to that island. He stated that they had no real name for this land, and called it merely the Spirit Island, which I could translate best only as Manitou Island, after their own tongue. I was then invited to partake of supper with them, at which I accepted. I took note of the name of this strange island in this very book, and when the girl showed curiosity in what I was doing, allowed her to make her own marking upon the page, which is the small turtle which was upon the page once before this, since torn out. I did not have a chance to take these notes then, as I stayed a while at the home of Two Owls and Silver Eagle Feather, and from them learned a little bit more about this island, though there was not much new that they could tell me. I did learn that the girl was not actually the old man's granddaughter, that she had been adopted, though I was not given the details at the time. The other medicine man's name was given to me as "Stick-In-The-Dirt," and he too had been adopted into the tribe at some point in the past.
After the supper with Two Owls and the girl, I was summoned to the lodge of the chief of the tribe, whose name was given as "Yellow Turtle"; he had not been present when I had arrived, but on returning, and hearing of my arrival, he had asked that I be brought to him forthwith, so that we might meet.
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