Mackenzie Stone
I now mixed up some vermillion in melted grease, and inscribed, in large characters, on the South-East face on the rock on which we had slept last night, this brief memorial From The Journals and Letters of Sir John Alexander Mackenzie the aluminum boat bangs against the steep rock face low tide chucks me into salt water a cliff like others unlike others, made famous by a man-made message. No longer able to stand, reduced animal-like on all fours alarm and excitement propel me zig-zagging up Tevas slip on greasy yellow seaweed then perilous black mould finally, a carpet of thin turf. Trembling legs push me forward. A classroom memory of drawing explorers’ routes across the continent, black and coloured lines on paper imagined distant rivers, lakes, forests and mountainsides to the Pacific, history at my fingertips And there it is Alexander Mackenzie From Canada By Land 22 July 1793 granite rounds down onto a narrow plateau grey and smooth as silk ends in the chiseled-out letters vermillion and fat activate the words, the story underneath I trace the rough letters slowly with my fingers. I lean against the wall and smile sunwarmth envelopes me I too made it to the sea. - Helen Gowans |