Through Woods on Water

Book excerpt: “Through Woods on Water” is a novel, an historic fiction: the life of Étienne Brûlé “as it might have been.” Set in the first decades of the 17th century, it is a coming of age story, a clash of cultures, a saga of exploration and adventure that rebounds between the enclosed corridors and courtyards of Paris, across the open, storm-tossed Atlantic, to the wilderness waterways of the vast Canadian forest. Savignon and Étienne, Wendat and French, are in their mid teens when they meet on the shores of the broad St Lawrence River, brought there by the chalk-faced shaman Ostemoy and the determined navigator Champlain. Inspired by the Wendat heroes Iouskeha and Tawiscaron, who gave shape and texture to the world of the Wendat, the two form an unlikely lifetime bond symbolized by the half turtle Oki or talisman that each wears about his neck. Their connection intensifies through decades of wandering, discovery, torture and adventure, until it concludes with a final confrontation by the Sweetwater Sea. Only then are the halves of the Turtle Oki fused once more.