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Ghosts of James Bay Chapter 8 overview
Hudson is curious about how Al came to this place. Al did not explain to Hudson about the trucks and trains and the helicopter that he and his father had used to get to James Bay from their home, but he did tell him about his canoe. He explained that he had hit a rock and ended up on the beach where he met Jack.
Al explained that he came to that area to see if the stories he had heard from his people about the Europeans visiting the land were true. • Hudson and his men remember the warrior that had tried to trade with them the first time and thinks that maybe Al is connected to them. • Hudson asks Al to help them find a way to Quebec to make contact with the French who live there. • Al agrees to help.
Hudson decides that he will stay behind with the two really sick men, Wydhowse and Fanner. He will send Jack and Staffe with Al to try to go south to meet up with the French. • Al knows that they are about a thousand kilometers from Quebec City and that it would be really hard for them to get there by foot. Al thinks they might be more lucky if they meet some friendly First Nations people.
Hudson gives Jack the gold coin and his journal- a book that tells of Hudson’s adventures. He asks Jack to take care of these things. Jack is sad that his father is not going to come along with them. • Al is nervous because he feels responsible to help these men. He isn’t sure how that is going to happen.
Hudson goes to bed and then Jack and Al have a talk by the campfire. • Al asks Jack about what really happened on this ship with the mutiny. • Jack explains that some of the men were not honest and they were traitors. Some of the other men were not all bad though. Jack explains that his father was very determined to find the Northwest Passage and that he pushed his crews hard to keep working even though many were sick and hungry.
Jack explains that Hudson was so convinced that they were close to Asia and that they should keep trying. He also explains that Hudson really wanted to return to England with the riches of the Orient (spices and gold). • Jack explains that Hudson was not a fighting man and he would rather compromise than to fight with weapons or punish his men when they were not obeying him. Some of Hudson’s men thought he was a weak leader because of this.
Jack explains that Hudson liked some of his crew members more than others and sometimes treated them differently because of this. Hudson also got depressed because they weren’t as successful as he had hoped. Because things were not going well for the crew, they needed a strong leader. Some of the men started to doubt Hudson.
Then there were problems with food. Some of the men ate their food rations and didn’t save anything for the future. Then when they got hungry, the bad men started telling stories that the food wasn’t being shared properly. This made the desperate sailors angryand that is when they started to plan a mutiny. • On June 22, the mutinous men took Hudson and the others who were left behind and put them in a little boat. • They had only been allowed to take a few clothes. • Staffe brought along his gun, a pot and his chest.
Jack and Al build a fire together that will help to keep them warm through the night. Al feels a lot of pressure to try to help these men and he isn’t quite sure how this is going to happen. • The warrior is still watching Al and the others from the shadows. He listened to them talk, but could not understand their language.
The warrior did recognize one thing though: the gold coin. • His okimah had one that was the same. The okimah had been given the coin from his elder, who had been the chief before him. The coin had come from a band of Swampy Cree who had died of a strange sickness. These people told the okimah that they got it from gods who visited in a flying ship. The okimah was told to keep the coin safe until the gods came back.
The warrior figured that these visitors were not gods, because they didn’t know how to survive. He understood that the visitors were men, just like him. • The warrior wanted to talk to his okimah about this news- that the visitors had the same coin. He thought this news would help to convince his okimah that they needed to contact the visitors and to trade with them.
