Our Coup Taken

Beauharnois
N 45 19.330 W 073 52.526

Today started with a hostile Indian attack. Or perhaps not. I'll let you decide. Here are the facts.

As we were leaving the anchorage around 0730 I saw a jet ski (Sea-Doo, PWC or whatever you call them) approaching us from across the river. I was about to wave to the driver when he suddenly turned straight at us. He drove right up to Tarwathie at full speed and turned away at the last second, less than 3 feet away. The result was that he kicked up a big wave of water that splashed all down over me and the boat. It was the same tactic as had been used against us yesterday, albeit not quite
so forceful or effective as yesterday's splash. The rider appeared to be a young Indian man to me. Perhaps a teenager.

This Indian wasn't satisfied though. He turned around and made another pass from the rear, again veering away at the last second and splashing me from behind. A lot of the water went down the open companionway door. We scrambled to close the hatches and put in the batter boards to close the companionway. Our attacker made pass after pass, from all quarters. I estimate 12 passes in total. By the time he finished, we were in the middle of the ship channel. I considered and rejected taking
countermeasures. Not that I could have done anything meaningful. He was infinitely more maneuverable than a 20,000 pound boat with a full keel. Luckily, my rage didn't build. After the first two passes I felt less threatened, and he couldn't get us any more wet than we already were. Finally, he tired of the game and drove away to a nearby fuel dock where a bunch of his friends were waiting on the shore.

After it was all over, I thought about this attack and yesterday's too. Clearly, the Indians were mad that we anchored in "their" waters. We relied on two guide books that recommended that spot as a good anchorage. Nevertheless, those guides were no doubt written by white people. It is not the Indian's responsibility to put up signs or to warn off unwelcome visitors. Nor can we expect that they behave like white people. A white man would have come up to Tarwathie and asked us to leave. These
teenagers acted very differently. By our norms, he committed an unjustified act of violence, a strict taboo in polite white society. On the other side, I recall the descriptions of the custom of some Indian tribes to take coup. As I remember it, the warrior would ride his horse close to the enemy during battle. Instead of killing the enemy, he would reach out and touch him with a coup stick. It was an act of bravado designed to demonstrate bravery of the warrior and contempt for the enemy.
I felt that the Indian boy had taken our coup.

So what's the bottom line? Should we be outraged, or should we apologize to the Akwesasnes for squatting on their waters? Libby thinks the former, I think the latter. Therefore, from Libby: "I shake my fist at you and promise revenge." From Dick: "I apologize. We should have paid more attention to the earlier, gentler, indirect warnings that we weren't welcome."

Oh well, 15 minutes after the attack, we cleared the nearby island and caught our first glimpse of the Adirondacks. Still better, we could plainly see Lyon Mountain. That made us very homesick. Lyon Mountain can be seen prominently from Burlington and from the northern end of Lake Champlain and seen from Potsdam where we lived 42 years ago. My mood improved as I watched the mountains while stripping naked and putting on dry clothes.

Soon, we came to Lac Saint Frances. It is a beautiful lake with very many picturesque islands. It is also deceptive because most of the lake is only 1-2 feet deep and boats like us must stick to the ship channel. It reminded us of Mosquito Lagoon in Florida.

After lunch we came to the Beauharnois Canal with two draw bridges and two locks. The bridge tenders were rude. They wouldn't answer any of my radio calls, nor the calls of other boaters. We waited upstream of the bridge in the 2 knot current. We noticed a small 20 foot sailboat with a man on woman onboard who were also waiting. It seemed that their outboard motor stopped and that he couldn't restart it. The man scrambled toward his anchor to avoid drifting in to the closed bridge. We approached
them and offered to give them a tow. The man didn't speak English, and the woman only a little, but we made ourselves understood anyhow. We took them in tow and towed them about a mile away to a place close the shore where it was shallow enough for them to anchor. We returned to the bridge and managed to sneak under the open bridge hard on the stern of a ship.

At the next bridge, the tender didn't answer radio calls. Then, the bridge raised, but the light stayed red. I called the operator to ask if we should wait for green. No response. I finally went under the bridge against the red light. It turned green just after we passed under. I think they are rude.

At the lock we tied up at the waiting dock where 6 other boats waited already. We tried to use the phone to the lockmaster. It was broken. We tried buying lock passes from the dispenser machine. It was broken. A modern LCD display sign offered information on the next opening. Two of the three lines of text were broken, but the third line gave us the information we needed, the lock would open in 20 more minutes.

We passed through the two Beauharnois locks without incident. The lock tenders were very helpful and friendly and bilingual. In theory we could continue on to Montreal tonight, arriving just before dark. However, we don't know how long we might have to wait at the next locks, so we're anchored for the night here in Lac Saint Louis. The Montreal skyline is visible 20 miles to the northeast.

I just turned on the radio and we got Burlington Vermont Public Radio. That makes us even more homesick.