The Hungry Hand

(From The Writers Cabin, VRBO, Grand Marais MN, 11/15/23)

        I find myself remembering things now. Details that at first, right after, had slipped my mind. But now are recalled. For instance, it was a nice day when we started out, but, as the events I will try to describe here happened the weather was overcast, colder, dreary, bare. Strange I cannot recall that transition occurring.

          But I am getting ahead of myself, or, maybe, behind actually. Foremost I am of 100% Dutch ancestry. My father’s parents were immigrants. My mother’s, second generation. They grew up in, tiny towns that were, almost exclusively, Dutch. My father by Holland MN, near Pipestone. My mother in Pease MN, about 25 miles south of Lake Mille Lacs.

          Myself, I grew up in Milaca, just North of Pease. Attended 8 years of Pease Christian School. The Christian Reformed Church dominated the community. When my mother was a child the services where in Dutch. As they were in my father’s case as well. Dutch language and customs prevailed then. Not unusual for first generation immigrant communities.

          My story here predates those immigrants by a generation, or two, likely. It is the story of Pieter DeGroot.

DeGroot was a pious man. Probably a minister back in the Netherlands but became disenchanted with the ways of The Dutch Reformed Church there. Apparently their brand of Calvinism was not strict enough for him. He reported having visitations of The Holy Ghost who instructed him to abandon the established church. He assembled a group of those equally devout in these convictions and formed his own sect. Somehow DeGroot made the arrangements, homesteading or otherwise, to place deposit on a large tract of land northwest of here. Grand Marais. In the latter quarter of the 19th century he, and his followers, roughly 6-10 families, and others, made their way here to establish a colony where they could dairy and enjoy a life with freedom of their religion.

Arriving here in the spring they set to work building their community. Although they made significant progress, they were woefully unprepared for the winter.

The majority perished that season. The few survived. Whispers of cannibalism were heard. (This is not unusual in Minnesota -see the story of the founders of the town of Rollingstone near Winona.)

DeGroot however would, too, survive – what little reporting made of the incident indicates an exodus, skeletal and abject, filtering into town out of the forests. A gathering totally dependent on the kindness of strangers.  

(News reports are minimal. Newspapers at that time [Fort William. Two Harbors] were rife with tragedy and loss in that era – especially so in regards to immigrants.)

DeGroot and the other survivors would somehow find their way to Hull Iowa. The sect would enjoy better fortune there but some would fall to ignominy. DeGroot would report further visions and visitations by The Holy Ghost, some of those, apparently, included commandments to adopt practices including polygamy, incest and so forth. The sect fractured and dissipated. Hull’s established Reformed Churches, as well as local authorities, persecuted him. He fades into disgrace.

Now, one of those children that emerged from the woods that spring was my grandmother’s aunt, Johanna. She would lead an uneventful life, raise a family, be admired.

She was a meticulous keeper of notes – journals, diaries. She was a writer.

My grandmother was given these notes and, in turn, my mother would gain possession. I discovered these notes after my mother’s passing early in this century.

Penned in English, although somewhat broken, they are a trove of information regarding her everyday life.

And they included vivid details in regards to that Grand Marais episode. At least the happy times. The leaving of the Netherlands, the journey, arrival, building of the settlement and so on.

          However, there is no mention of the starving or depravations, - only to refer to it as “The Dark Days.” (She lost a little brother that winter.)

                                       

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My wife, Jessica, and I now live in Duluth. We come to Grand Marais about once a year, engaging various lodgings here. We always have a good time.

Well almost always.

I brought with us this time one of Johanna’s journals. Specifically, the one about the failed colony here.

Over the last few months, I had the notion that, based on her accounts, we might be able to locate the remnants, if any, of the doomed immigrant project. In fact, by just employing Google Maps I thought I could already, back in Duluth, locate some of the landmarks: The pond (“pool”) for instance, the rock outcroppings, the creek, the boulder and so forth.

So, day before yesterday we pulled out. A lovely day it was then. Just North of town we parked the car and followed the Superior Hiking Trial east and, sure enough, landmarks as described began to manifest. We broke from the trial and followed the stream upwards and, there was the pool. – the going not so difficult, late autumn foliage affording less resistance.

We found the boulder, just as described. We were there.

We looked about…. nothing. Not a foundation, or log remnant to be seen. Perhaps some vague depressions that could’ve been natural or, wrought years ago by the settlers.

As we penetrated deeper, we noticed some stones that seemed unnatural in their placement; leaning and inserted into the ground… intentionally placed there.

We looked at each other. A graveyard?

And as we went deeper still into the forest, we began to notice bones. Lots of them. Bleached. Not human, mind you, animal bones they were. Deer for sure. Bear? Raccoon? Squirrels? A myriad of mammal bones and skeletons.

And yet, beyond that, a stench. Here then was a deer carcass, the author of the stench. It looked to be nearly totally consumed by some kind of cadaver feeders and, not far away, similar partially consumed remains of a bald eagle and some crows.

I said, “What the hell?”

Just then Jessica shrieked. She was looking at the ground. I looked down. A skeletal hand had emerged from the leaves and was grasping at her ankle! Shaking her ankle wildly would not dislodge the claw.

Calling upon some kind of primal instinct I did not know I possessed I, somehow, recalled passing by a mound of bones. On some primitive level I noted then a huge bone, the femur of a moose perhaps, protruding upwards from the mass. I swung around and there it was. I grasped it and arced down upon the hand with a savage intensity.

It shattered.

I grabbed Jessica. The earth was boiling now about us, leaves, grasses, the very dirt itself vibrating with vicious dreadful intent. Arms, other skeletal hands, legs, all fluttering from the forest floor. A frenzy. And skulls! Skulls rolling wildly, jaws snapping, eye sockets dark with malice.

I was as wild as they. I clubbed and smashed and fractured everything in our path.

Later we were on The Superior Trial again, winded, gasping. We were sobbing uncontrollably. I looked with disturbed surprise at that femur still in my grasp and hurled it away from me.

It came to me then. I realized with horror that the skeletal hand I crushed back there in the forest was the hand of a child.

                             

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Now here I sit. How do we push forward after this? What do we do now?

You might be asking yourself, why am I then writing this?

Here is the answer:

I am warning you, that’s why.

Don’t go there.

Please don’t go there.

I beg you. Don’t go to the starved cemetery!