This story was written for a computer learning course in Waskaganish. So was another story, written in Cree, which we published in our Sept. 9 issue on page 15. That story was written by Edith Matoush of Nemaska and Elizabeth Jolly of Waskaganish. Thank you for your contributions.
He had turned nine years in the fall of ’93 and he was looking forward to the spring. This just might be the year he would kill his first goose.
As the spring approached, all the people in the village grew more excited as the hunting season was approaching. None were more excited than the young boys who had not yet killed their first goose.
Many of the boys younger than he was had already killed their first goose. This was not unusual, so this did not bother him. As he prepared himself to leave for his grandparents’ camp with his cousins there was a show of excitement in his eyes. All the snowmobiles had been gassed up and they were now tying down the canvas over the supplies in the sleds. The time had arrived to leave for the spring camp.
His parents stood at the shore as the snowmobiles headed out on the ice along the trail that leads to many of the spring camps. They stood there until they rounded the point and could no longer be seen.
On a good day and under the right conditions, the ride to the camp would only take three hours. This trip took four hours because the weight of sleds was so heavy.
At the camp, the hunters were busy preparing their blinds and repairing their decoys. Tomorrow all the hunters would be sitting in their blinds waiting for the first flocks to come flying into their ponds.
The boy hunted for one evening and one afternoon with his uncles and they did not have a chance to shoot. When his father arrived the next day, his son was not at the camp but at the blind with his uncles. He decided to go and see how his son had made out for the day. He had to be guided there by his brother-in-law and when they arrived he saw his son sitting in the blind holding three fingers in the air. He thought his son killed three geese but it was three grouse he had killed in the morning. Shortly after, they decided to go back to camp because the geese were just not flying.
At the camp, they settled in for the night and after some discussion they decided to sit together in a new blind the next day. They were up before the sunrise and by daybreak they fixed up their new blind with the help of the boy’s uncles. The sun was just above the horizon when the first loner came flying in. It was on the far side of the pond where the goose was landing. It was too far away for the boy to shoot, so one of his uncles shot the goose.
It was when the father decided to walk to the tea camp that he heard them calling. He could hear it was another loner. He could not see the pond from where he was but he heard the flapping of the wings as the bird landed. He sat quietly listening, then he heard the shot and he knew it was his son who fired, so he rushed back to the pond and asked who took the shot. It was his son who fired and he had wounded the goose. It was standing in the bush not far from the pond. His uncles circled the goose and shot. They gave him the goose and told him it was the first one he shot. The boy immediately wanted to return and show everyone the first goose he shot. It was still early in the day so they asked the boy to wait, just in case.
Sure enough, not long after, goose calls filled the air as a pair of geese were fast approaching their pond. The father and son were sitting in their blind together when the two birds landed in the water very close to where they were sitting. They lifted their shotguns together and at the given signal they fired. After the smoke cleared two geese lay dead in the pond.
The two uncles shouted, “Did your son kill one?” The father answered, “Yes.” The uncles told the boy that now he had killed his first goose. This was a special moment because it was at this same time that the father killed his first goose of the season.
