Saskatchewan, Canada, Yellowknife Gazette, 1946 -
Two men, on a fishing trip to a remote lake in our province came across the remains of an fallen log cabin. A skeleton found nearby seemed to be of a man, probably in his sixties. A well-worn King James Bible was also discovered. Inside the Bible, the marriage of Raymond Lee Parker to Mary-Louise Pittman (1846) was carefully inscribed in ink by a clear feminine hand. Noted below this were two births, a son, Michael Collins Parker (1847) and a daughter, Mary lee Parker (1848). Nothing else is known.
His daddy called him Nub. He remembered that.
His mama called him something else. He couldn’t remember what his mama called him. He remembered a little sister, but he didn’t remember much about her. He couldn’t recall too much about them because they died. He thought they died a long time ago. He didn’t think that in words though. He only knew a few words. He had no reason to use words.
He thought in images.
Every thought that passed through Nub’s head
came in the form of what we would now call virtual reenactments, something like videos with smells, sounds, and feelings. They were memories, but not in the usual understanding of the word. When Nub “remembered” something he actually relived the memory. So did all the animals in his world. They also knew what all the other animals were thinking, or rather, feeling. This was understood, not “thought”.
We would call it telepathy. Nub’s memories moved around his head, one connecting to another, and then another, just as words and pictures do in our minds. His earliest memories were of the time when he was small.
He could see his father, and mother, and his baby sister. He could see and smell the “fire” in the stove and the smells that came on the breeze. He remembered his father walking into the forest with his “gun”. He remembered his father coming back to the “cabin” with “meat”. He remembered his mother cutting up and cooking the meat. He remembered not liking any of this. He did not like this cutting up and eating of other animals. He ate some of the meat. He did not like it. He preferred the plants, nuts, and berries his mother gathered from the forest. He remembered these words: fire; gun; cabin; meat; and a few more.
He remembered these words more as pictures of what they described than as words. After a while he couldn’t remember many of the words at all. He did remember the time his father walked into the forest and did not come back.
He could see his mother, his sister and himself looking through the forest for his father. He could see his mother’s tears. He could feel his sister’s confusion. Then his memories moved to gathering food in the forest with his mother. She showed him all the good things to eat.
Later, he remembered when his sister stopped breathing. He remembered his mother digging a hole in the ground, and putting his sister in the ground, and covering her with dirt.
He could feel the sadness of his mother and see the tears that spilled from her eyes. He could not understand what happened. He could feel that it was very bad.
Then he remembered a later time when he was gathering food in the forest with his mother. She fell to the ground and stopped breathing. He remembered when that happened to his sister. He could feel wet tears on his face. He didn’t know what to do. He covered her with leaves and walked back to cabin.
He was alone after that.
Whenever he gathered food from the forest, he remembered his sister and mother.
He was big now, as big as his father was before he walked into the forest and did not come back. He did not like remembering these long-ago things. They came into his mind, anyway. Squirrel interrupted his remembering, coming into cabin for the nuts he knew Nub would share with him.
Nub wasn’t really alone. He had many animal friends from the forest. Many of them slept in cabin with him. Many more walked with him when he gathered food in the forest. They usually ate what they found when they found it. Nub saved some, as his mother had done, in her basket. He brought what he saved back to cabin and stored them in his mother’s wooden boxes.
Nub remembered the first snow and cold that came after he was alone. He remembered the shivering and felt the hunger.
When the warm days came again he made sure to store more food in the barrels.
And so it went, good times, bad times, mist, wind, rain, snow - time after time, always different, but also the same. Animal friends came and went. Nub thought the ones that didn’t come back to cabin must have stopped breathing somewhere in the forest. He thought he might stop breathing some time, too.
He couldn’t do anything with this thought. The pictures and smells in his head turned to the green berries that he knew were now getting ripe.
Nub remembered wearing clothes and shoes. That was when he was small. When he got bigger, the clothes and shoes got smaller. For a long time now, he didn’t wear anything at all.
On colder days he wrapped himself in a blanket from
the cabin tied tight with chord. Most days he was as naked and shoeless as his animal friends. The soles of his feet were tough as leather. His skin was toughened too by long exposure to wind and cold. His never-cut long hair and beard helped a little to keep him warm. It was enough.
He was comfortable in his skin and hair as few humans ever are.
Every day Nub rambled through his forest. Old friends from childhood, Deer, Wolf, and Ravin would follow at his side. They all became friends in the same warm time when Wolf was not full grown. His leg was hurt. He could walk but he couldn’t run with the pack. Maybe the pack left him behind. He was thin and hungry.
Raven kept vigil from the trees above Wolf. Raven went where Wolf went. Raven watched as Nub gathered slugs and snails and mushrooms and laid them on the ground for Wolf to eat. While Wolf ate, Raven flew to the ground to pluck his share. After the meal they followed Nub to cabin. After that day they rambled together.
Nub, Wolf and Raven met Deer later in that same warm time. She wasn’t grown enough to be without a mother, but no mother was around. Though she was frighted, she didn’t run away. Nub, Wolf and Raven sat near her, waiting without moving. Deer moved shyly to them
Nub gently stroked her neck. Wolf licked her muzzle. Raven looked on.
Now they were four.
As they rambled together, squirrels, rabbits, and birds would join them for a while before dropping away to their own business. Bears, cougars, and other predators knew about these rambles but stayed away. They were put-off by the strangeness of a human, wolf and deer walking together, with a raven flying above. Why take a chance. Best to hunt elsewhere.
Nub never saw a human in his forest, not even an Indian.
Some Indians did see him. They were as alarmed as bear and cougar by the unnatural sight of a naked white man walking with forest animals as though it was normal. Word spread quickly. Stay away from this part of the forest, it is protected
by a pale white spirit that walks with the animals. The Indians already believed this forest was protected by Sasquatch. Now a white spirit-man, too. Best to hunt elsewhere.
Nub didn’t know about Indians. He did know about Sasquatch. He knew Sasquatch as he knew all the animals
in his forest, by image, smell, and movement. They rarely met. When they did they always stared at each other briefly, then turned and walked away. At first meeting Nub was surprised by this hugh furry creature, twice his size, that walked on two legs like himself. He didn’t exactly fear or dislike Sasquatch. He just didn’t feel the common understanding he had with the other animals.
Nub avoided Sasquatch as he would have avoided Indians had he known about them.
Sasquatch probably felt the same about Nub.
Animals, even humans, know, by some kind of psychic emanation which other animals are their “sort”.
It has nothing to do with species, race, or culture. It’s a deeper conviction that comes at first contact. How many times have you met someone new without a spontaneous sensing of compatibility - or not. Knowing them longer rarely changes your first reaction.
This has nothing to do with good or bad persons.
It is entirely about “my sort”, or “not my sort”. This sense is personal, primordial, universal, and nearly always accurate.
It works between individual animals of all species. It is always about one creature to one creature. Nub and all the animals in the forest relied on this sense. Every individual met was “my sort”, or “not my sort”. Species didn’t matter.
One day Nub, Deer, and Wolf rambled further than usual. They found themselves looking down at a lower land that had no forest.
They saw grassland stretching as far as they could see. Large brown animals were grazing on the grass. These were buffalo. None of the three had ever seen buffalo. They couldn’t understand what they were looking at. This land-that-was-not-forest made Nub uncomfortable. He turned and walked back to forest. Deer followed.
Wolf lingered. He wasn’t as eager to return to forest. He sniffed the air. He may have scented a wolf pack far away on the grassland. Raven soared out over the plain searching wide. When Raven returned to Wolf, both returned to their friends, Nub and Deer.
The cold time was coming. Cabin was more open than before. There were some holes in the roof. Some chinking had fallen from between the logs. Nub pressed moss into the empty spaces. This helped a little, but cabin wasn’t as warm as before. One of the hinges on the door had given way. Now the door was permanently ajar and slightly open all the time. Some of the lost heat was renewed because in cold times more animals joined them in shelter of cabin.
Porcupine, Raccoon, Rabbit, and more, happily moved in to get out of the cold. They often snuggled together in the night. The combined body heat didn’t make cabin warm. It did make it warmer than outside. It was enough.
When the warm time came again many moved out. Others remained cabin dwellers thereafter. They came and went as they chose.
Cold time and warm time came and went, over and over. The four friends had many seasons of pleasant adventure together. They thought they would always be together.
One day Deer fell to her knees. Then she slumped to her side and stopped breathing. Nub remember when this happened to his mother. With tears sliding down his cheeks he started covering his friend Deer with leaves. Raven watched from above. Wolf didn’t know about any of this. He whimpered and pushed hie muzzle against Deer’s shoulder trying to get her to stand up.
Nub knew Deer would never get up again. He started back to cabin. Wolf followed reluctantly.
Deer stopped breathing in the time between warm and cold. That night Nub sat outside cabin with Wolf and Raven by his side. Nub looked up at the sky as he often did. He liked looking at the sparkling stars. This night there were no stars.
The sky seemed to be silently exploding. Great bands of many colors swirled from horizon to horizon.
Nub had seen this before. This time he thought it might be because Deer had stopped breathing. Wolf was laying by Nub’s side. He too looked up to the sky because Nub was looking at the sky. Seeing nothing worth looking at he laid his head against Nub’s knee and fell asleep.
Later that night Nub dreamed about the good times
of rambling and gathering food with Deer, Wolf and Ravin. These were good memories.
He dreamed a memory of the time a deer herd called
to Deer and snuffed suspiciously at Wolf. He remembered when Raven tumbled for fun down a snowy hill.
He dream-remembered times when Wolf would snatch up and swallow a mouse. At these times, Nub and Deer would pretend not to notice because Wolf was a wolf, and because Wolf was their friend. Raven didn’t care. He snatched a few mice himself, and many more grasshoppers.
Wolf, Nub and Raven were together for another cold time and another warm time before Wolf stopped breathing too.
Raven waited for Wolf to get up. He waited two days, then he flew away. He did not return. Nub remembered the grasslands and how Wolf had sniffed the air and how Raven had flown out and over that strange flat land.
Nub thought Raven had gone to those grasslands. Nub somehow understood that Raven had gone to follow the wolf packs that hunted the buffalo. He knew this without knowing how he knew.
Nub was alone now for the first time since he was small. He felt small again. He was sad. He felt lonely. He had no memories of sad or lonely. He did remember some times of sickness. He thought he was sick. He would wait and would get better.
Nub did not get better. When the cold came again it was colder than before. Maybe that was because he was sick. Nub didn’t really think that. He couldn’t. Instead, he remembered his friends and was sad. He was sick with sadness.
Cold and warm came and went, again and again. The sick sadness remained.
One day while drinking from a stream he saw in his reflection streaks of white in his hair and beard. He didn’t know what to make of this, so instead, he remembered something he could understand, something that needed to be done, the chinking he had to replace.
As he worked at the chinking, he recognized that everything seemed harder now than it used to. He didn’t understand why. He just felt it. He felt tired.
Nub still had animal friends, but not like Deer, Wolf and Raven. Something was wrong inside him. He still enjoyed rambling through his forest. Days and days of warm and cold went by, but not like before. He spent more time sleeping. He was tired more and more. One day while gathering food he felt a hurt in his chest. He fell to the ground. Memories, sights, smells and feelings from long ago spun through his head at great speed.
Then he stopped breathing.
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As soon as he stopped breathing Deer and Wolf came to him. Ravin flew above. Mother, father and sister came to him, too. The forest seemed more beautiful than ever before. He felt strong again like he had felt when he was young. There was a glow overhead different from anything he could remember. He understood what he had not understood before.
He felt at home, more now than ever before.
Now, he knew his name was not Nub, but William Collins Parker. He knew words he had not known before. The whole of his life was spread out before him. He knew about his family. He knew about his grandparents and his grandparents grandparents.
He knew what life was about. He knew that he had always known all this, but had forgotten.
Now he remembered what he had forgotten -
Better than before.
Epilogue – Some would say William Collins Parker grew up as a savage; unlettered, crude, more animal than human.
All true, yet he lived a long healthy life, doing no harm to any creature while helping many.
Compassion was natural to him, so too was appreciation of life. He lived as I imagine Adam lived before the fall, although he never had the blessing of an Eve.
His life may have been more fulfilling than anything civilization could ever offer. He lived and died unnoticed by the civilized world. Does that matter? I don’t think so. There is only one notice that matters.
God noticed.
Nub’s Forest grew upon the thin soil of the Laurentian Plateau. This plateau straddles most of Canada. It divides Saskatchewan nearly in half. The Great Plains of America start at the southern edge of the Plateau and run all the way into Mexico. Nub lived just north of this dividing line at an altitude, a hundred or more feet above the plains. Glaciers long ago scraped most of the soil from the plateau and gouged out deeper areas that became many lakes, rivers, and streams. These conditions created a boreal forest of small conifers and birch, with boggy marshes, mosses and abundant water.