Making the Carry, the story of John and Tichi-Ki-Wis Linklater

 

Local author Tim Cochrane hits all of the right notes with this book, a love story about a couple who lived through many hardships and significant changes that occurred in Canada, Minnesota, and Michigan’s Isle Royale.

Okay, Cochrane, a historian, wouldn’t classify this as a love story, but it comes across that way to me as he introduces John Linklater and his wife, Tchi-Ki-Wis.

Cochrane’s research and prose guide the reader through the epic lives of John Linklater and his wife, Tchi-Ki-Wis, who lived from the 1870s to the early 1930s.

John Linklater was Metis, coming from Cree, Anishinaabeg, and Scottish ancestry, while his wife came from the Lac La Croix First Nation. They were Canadian by birth but lived much of their lives on Basswood Lake, the Winton, Ely area, and Isle Royale, although they wintered once near Poplar Lake in Cook County and often traveled great distances via canoe, living off of the land.

John worked as a logger, trapper, musher, commercial fisherman, guide, and game warden and was famous for his work with Sigurd Olson and other academics who sought him out for his knowledge of plants and animals.

Tchi-Ki-Wis was known for her brilliant work as a craftswoman. She made birch bark canoes, wove intricate Anishinaabeg cedar bark mats with stunning geometric designs( diamonds, chevrons, plaids, etc.), moccasins, moose calls, sled dog harnesses, and more. Some of her work remains today in museums.

The book technically ends at 231 pages. It covers the Linklater family’s history, the tragic loss of their daughter in her early 20s, their adoption of her son, and John’s legendary exploits capturing illegal trappers and their kindness towards folks they met along the way.

The 318-page tome is filled with pictures of the couple, their friends, and colleagues as they journeyed through the northland. There are a lot of photographs from their time on Isle Royale, where John worked with a wide-ranging assortment of naturalists, academics, botanists, and biologists. There are also quite a few pictures of Tchi-Ki-Wis cedar strip mats, moccasins, and beadwork.

The book technically ends at 231 pages, but the more than 90 pages of notes are worth every second of reading you give them. While most of us know Tim for his 20-year career as superintendent of the Grand Portage National Monument, you will get a peek into his life as a hard-working academic and the trials and tribulations of “digging” to get to a true or best accounting of the Linklater couple. It’s a great read from start to finish. That said, you will have to wait until April 11, 2023, when it hits bookstores. However, it is published through the University of Minnesota Press and is well worth the wait.