Upstream

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Upstream is a novel by the Scottish author Margaret Elphinstone , which appeared in 2003 under the English title Voyageurs by Canongate Books in Edinburgh . The translation into German was done by Marion Balkenhol.

In the British colony of Upper Canada from 1809 to 1813: On behalf of the British, the young Scottish fur trader Alan Mackenzie incites the Indians in the border area to the United States to armed struggle against the advancing US Army. The locals give Alan a lesson: The Indians kidnap his young wife Rachel. When Alan approaches Rachel's whereabouts again two years after the kidnapping, he is even life-threateningly injured by a musket hit.

The novel can also be read as a documentary report: The young English farmer and mountain guide Mark Greenhow is looking for his missing younger sister Rachel. On the foreign North American continent, Mark wins the love of two women. Since he cannot get the beautiful 14-year-old Waase'aaban (“light everywhere”), he leads home the Quaker Clemency Armitage, who is disfigured by pockmarks .

shape

Quaker Mark Greenhow from Mosedale near Derwentwater in the Lake District in Cumberland confides his story on paper. Margaret Elphinstone buys Mark's Highside property in the early 21st century, finds the manuscript in the attic and acts as "editor".

Mark, like his brother-in-law Alan, was born in 1787 and was writing his story in January 1840 - 27 years after the events. He is married at the time and has two grown sons. His text is polyglot. Because in Quebec and to the west of it - on the banks of the St. Lawrence River , Mark faces the French population. So he quotes the French without further ado. Mark provides his notes with numerous (sometimes extensive) footnotes. At the narrated time (anno 1812), these allow readers eager to be tortured to have a reassuring look into the more distant future (from 1814 to 1840).

Mark the narrator is pious. His quotations from the Bible may serve as evidence for this. But not only that. He writes cautiously. The narrator is anything but lustful. When he z. If, for example, the beautiful 14-year-old Waase'aaban is seduced, he does not write it in plain text in his manuscript, but speaks in riddles. The reader does not find out about the fact until a few hundred pages later, when the Quaker Mark has pangs of conscience about his reprehensible actions.

Literal repetition is sometimes used as a stylistic device in the text - for example when mentioning the atrocities of war. The Indians, it is said, tortured their prisoners.

Over and above the very extensive text, the author shows no weakness in form. The reader is only puzzled once. When three men tell each other in detail their life stories during the forced wintering in the snow-covered shelter in the North American wilderness. But strictly speaking, these passages also fit into the great novel concept.

The source (German edition) is free of printing errors - apart from two incorrect dates on p. 69 below.

Mark's trip to Rachel

Mark Greenhow leaves the Highside Mountain Farm and sets sail from Whitehaven on the brig Jane for Newfoundland in July 1811 . The ship sails past Anticosti Island and Cape Gaspé and reaches Quebec. Mark travels upstream on the St. Lawrence River to Montreal .

The greenhows aren't rich, but they have wealth. Mark does not appear as a have-not in a foreign country. He also has a letter of recommendation from his English Quaker friends in his pocket. While searching for his brother-in-law Alan Mackenzie, Mark first came across his influential relative William Mackenzie from the North West Company ( fur trader ) in Montreal. Because of the approaching winter, a river trip to see the brother-in-law on Mackinac Island is not possible. Mark spends the winter with Quakers on Yonge Street . He gets there via Fort William , Lachine , Prescott , Kingston and York . Mark's aunt Judith and sister Rachel lived on Yonge Street, in Clemency's house. Both women intended to convert the local people to Christianity. But both are gone.

Eastern Canada: Canoe with Voyageurs

In the following spring, Mark travels back to Montreal because from there he and the sales representative Hugh Chisholm and twelve voyageurs - these are hired canoeists - again via Lacine and Fort Williams, then via the Outaouais , the Nippissing Lake , the French River and the Huron Lake finally got to the river Sault . Mark knows the Thomas Nolan family live on Sault from Rachel's last letter. Nolan's wife, an Indian, says Rachel and her husband Alan loved each other. On the other bank of the Sault, Mark runs into Alan, who is constantly traveling around. Mark learns more details from Alan. Alan and Rachel had one child who died early. And Loic Kerners, Alan's companion, was there when Rachel disappeared. That was on South Manitou Island in Lake Michigan . Both men had been looking for Rachel as winter came.

Alan had met Rachel in September 1809 with the Nolans as a justice fanatic. Both were married by a priest. The child, not viable, was born in April 1810.

In midsummer, Alan and Mark and Loic go looking for South Manitou Island again. There on the island, Alan is wounded in the shoulder by an Indian and breaks his leg in the attack. The three men have to hibernate in the wild. The following spring, Mark learns from one of the Indians - Loic is interpreting - why Alan was shot: Alan was bringing mischief to the Indians on behalf of the English. Then follows the surprising twist in the book: Mark is led by an Indian through the thawing forest to his sister. Rachel was impregnated by her kidnappers and has a baby girl. Rachel and Mark go to Alan and Loic's with the baby. The voyageur Loic, who is descended from the Indians and the French, so knows the Indians very well, comments on the connections for Mark. Rachel was not returned to Alan, but to Mark! Loic repeats the reason he believes Rachel got impregnated: Rachel's husband, Alan, is a warmonger.

Strangeness and strangeness

After happily returning to Loic's family, Mark realizes that Alan (who welcomed Rachel and her Native American child with open arms) is better at dealing with this unpredictable woman than he is. He only makes two attempts to find out what is during and after the kidnapping by the Indians happened with Rachel. Rachel is - as she was as a child - extremely defiant as an adult, immediately reluctant to answer a small question and not at all communicative. Had Rachel been raped by her five or six Indian kidnappers and was conception very different? Mark doesn't make sense of Rachel's snotty contradiction. Finally, Rachel insists that she was not a prisoner of the Indians.

Just as the siblings remain strangers, Mark remains a stranger in the border area between Canada and the USA who doesn't understand people. He cannot even begin to put himself in the shoes of the Europeans who mix with the Indians, let alone the Indians. Although he suspects in the right direction - various people from around Alan and Loic knew about Rachel's fate with the Indians (or at least suspected it), but because Mark, on his insistent questioning, found a wall of silence and at best an evasive answer he leaves Rachel and Alan alone and returns to Cumberland forever with Clemency.

Mark learns the rest of the story by letter: Rachel stays with Alan and dies with Alan in 1815 while giving birth to a child. Rachel's Indian daughter married in 1833. Mark did not accept the invitation to the overseas wedding.

German editions