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A Free Spirit
| "So what′s it like to be the daughter of
a famous woman?" Silence came back from the other end of the line when I put this question to Anahareo′s youngest daughter Katherine in early December 2002. Katherine was pausing to think how to respond, though I wasn′t quite sure of that. The telephone connection between Germany and British Columbia wasn′t good at all - full of echoes and delays. "Well, did she think of herself that way? Did she have any sense at all of being a famous person?" I prodded. "No, not at all", Katherine shot back. "She did not think of herself as important at all!" I tried to piece together a sketch of what kind of a person this woman, after whom I had named my daughter, had actually been. Bob Richardson, who had been married to Anahareo′s oldest daughter Dawn until her untimely death in England in 1984 created a painting entitled "A Free Spirit" to describe his mother-in-law. This is the painting you see as a background on this page. In the picture gallery, you will find more details on the background pictures used on this site. A Free Spirit certainly seems to be a good overall summary of this woman. "Adventurous, rebellious, unconventional, a prankstress, deep concern for the animal world" - these are all terms that would fit Anahareo equally well. When I asked Katherine to elaborate a little more on the type of person her mother had been, this is how she described it: "My mother had a very good sense of humour, she didn't take herself seriously either. You asked me, did she feel that she was famous: No she didn't. She was a rebel right from the word go. When I say that, she didn't go with convention, so to speak. You can appreciate you have a young Mohawk woman in the early 1920's and 30's. The prejudice here was rampant against native people. She dressed in buckskin and breeches and like it was the hell with everybody - does that make sense to you? She was absolutely her own person." Anahareo′s endearing sense of humour interlaces her book "Devil in Deerskins". In the book, her sense of humour is ALWAYS directed at herself, never at others. This Mohawk Indian woman pokes fun at her own naiveté and inexperience during her first foray into the wilderness at the side of ex-Englishman Grey Owl. After Grey Owl had barely talked to her on a gruelling snowshoe trip into his trapping ground, he had dropped her off at their cabin and announced that he needed to go to his tent to prepare for a trip to the trapline the next day. Angry at being left alone, Anahareo decided to go over to the tent: "Thinking it would only take a second to get to the lodge; I didn′t put on my coat or the snowshoes. Out the door I went and sprawled face down in the snow. I got up, wiped my face, and peered about for Sunset Lodge. I could see only the slim stove-pipe sticking out like a periscope on a sea of snow. Too mad to return for my snowshoes, I waded hip deep in the snow and eventually reached the door... I gave this a lively rap, which made only a ′phuff, phuff, phuff′. No answer. In a temper, I whacked it vicously, disloging from the ridge-pole a huge chunk of snow, which plopped down on my head..."
Both Grey Owl and Anahareo were accomplished pranksters.
Here is another entertaining anecdote from Anahareo′s book:
"When we reached the cabin, Archie said, ′Wait. Before we go
in, I want to show you the bear den.′ (Quotes from "Devil in Deerskins" © 1972 by Gertrude Moltke, New Press, Toronto) |
Anahareo′s sense for the comical and
outrageous accompanied her into her high age. On one
occasion, when she was already in her mid-seventies, her
son-in-law Bob Richardson picked her up in Kamloops to take
her to Bob and Dawn′s new "mountain home" on Knouff Lake.
Knowing that Gertie, how Anahareo preferred to be called,
could be quite the party animal on the right occasion and
fearing for her safety in the rough and tumble surroundings
of their mountain home, Bob did not want create an
opportunity for too much of a party atmosphere. Gertie,
however, had mischief in her head right from the word go.
"When I turned on to the by-pass she demanded: ′Where in
hell are you going, Bob?′
Gertie slid quietly to the edge of the truck seat, and
slowly wound the window down as we drove down a main street.
Suddenly she opened the truck door and stood out on the
running board. What the hell was she up to, I thought! With
some panic, as I tried to slow down, she began hollering: (Quote from "A face beside the fire" © 2001 by Bob Richardson, 2-1951 Lodgepole Drive, Kamloops, BC, V1S 1Y1)How is it, that a native girl born in 1906 in a wilderness community of Ontario came to be such an eloquent story-teller? Here is what her daughter Katherine had to say on the subject: "She was self-educated. She only had about grade 4. But if you met her, she was very very knowledgeable, she just read constantly, she loved to read."But it was Anahareo′s compassion for the animal world, which was ultimately responsible for her own fame and for that of Grey Owl. Until they met, Grey Owl was an anonymous trapper like thousands in the forests of Northern Ontario and Quebec. While Grey Owl always seemed to have had misgivings about his profession deep down, Anahareo managed to bring these out into the open and turn her proud and often arrogant companion inside-out emotionally. She ultimately encouraged him to use his innate story-telling ability and his writing skills to tell the world about the threatened wilderness, thereby laying the foundation for their ultimate fame.
She describes her first encounter with the world of trapping
in her book "Devil in Deerskins": |
Contributions We welcome your suggestions on this site. We also welcome any materials that you may wish to contribute. We cannot guarantee, of course, that we will include them. Please feel free to drop us a line at postmaster@anahareo.ca Background Picture © Bob Richardson |
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