Saturday, August 24th

This morning I went to the meadow and saw Kwetlal again. She was digging camas with the others, tho' there were not as many as last week, which makes me think the harvest might be coming to an end. When I approached her, she remembered my name and looked happy to see me. It turns out she speaks and understands a little bit of English and when she pointed towards the Fort, mimed the act of paddling a canoe and said brother and father, I guessed that she might have learned some words from a relative who works for the company. Maybe her brother or father was one of the paddlers who brought me from Fort Langley. We played a few more guessing games – including one in which I tried to explain that my mother and father were dead, but not my grandmother. I must have used the right gestures for she smiled, seeming to understand, and took me meet her grandmother, the woman I had seen telling stories. I managed to get across that she reminded me of my grandmother.

I had never seen a camas root up close so I took the opportunity and looked into Kwetlal's basket. Camas? I said. They looked more like bulbs than roots, but Mrs. Staines had been right about the name for it, on hearing camas Kwetlal gave a delighted grin, handed me a pointed stick and showed me how to use it. (Now I wonder if I might have pronounced camas incorrectly, and said something that means Let me help with the digging.) It was not as easy as it looked.