Aaron’s departure for Nova Scotia

Aaron’s departure for Nova Scotia marks a choice between the overseas future planned by his father, Jinot Sel, and Aaron’s own search for family and belonging. Instead of joining Jinot and Mr. Bone on a voyage to New Zealand, Aaron sets out north, believing that finding relatives—and perhaps his uncle Josime—may bring him closer to a Mi’kmaw past he fears has been lost.

The voyage Aaron refuses

Mr. Bone’s plan begins with a business opportunity. He describes New Zealand’s kauri as exceptionally large, valuable timber and intends to inspect the forests before deciding what to do about the developing axe trade there. He has arranged passage for himself and Jinot, and proposes that Aaron join them. The trip is not an abstract possibility: Mr. Bone says they will leave in a fortnight and has arranged for Joseph Dogg to manage the factory while they are away.

For Jinot, the invitation conflicts with a promise he has made to keep Aaron close until the boy reaches manhood. Jinot tells Mr. Bone that Aaron is all he has left and recalls his own painful history as a reason for protecting him. Mr. Bone answers by proposing that Aaron come too, treating the boy as a useful traveling companion. The exchange makes the difference in their outlook plain: Jinot frames the voyage through responsibility for his son, while Mr. Bone sees a practical solution that lets the expedition proceed with Aaron in tow.

Aaron’s decision and departure

Aaron does not answer his father’s appeals immediately. He spends days in silence, smiling at times as if his thoughts were beyond sharing. When he finally explains himself, his wish is not to travel farther from his family history but to go to Nova Scotia and discover whatever Sel relatives may be there. He wants to know that life for himself.

Jinot counters with another destination: Manitoulin Island, where Aaron’s uncle Josime lives. He describes Josime as having returned to the old ways, although he is no longer living as Mi’kmaq; Josime had gone there with an Odaawa woman Jinot has often mentioned. Jinot argues that if Aaron wants to learn about the old forest life of their people, finding Josime is the way to do it. He also warns that Aaron is too young to make such a journey alone and offers a compromise: travel with him to New Zealand first, then go together to Manitoulin Island.

Aaron hears his father out and recognizes the appeal of seeking a person with a name and a place. But the compromise does not change his mind about the ocean crossing. He writes a brief letter, pins it to Jinot’s black coat, and leaves. Its misspelled, direct message says that he will not go to New Zealand, that he is going to Nova Scotia and then to find Uncle Josime, and that Jinot will hear his stories when he returns. The letter records both his decision and his hope of a future reunion; the narrative then shows him walking north, hopeful that the old Mi’kmaw ways cannot have disappeared utterly.

Family ties and competing journeys

Aaron’s departure takes shape against Jinot’s own approaching separation. Jinot is going across the ocean with Mr. Bone despite being crippled and not young, and he writes to his sister Elise to tell her where he will be. He also tells her that Aaron has refused to come. His letter promises that he will write, while Elise’s reply makes clear her distress about the news and her concern for the young people whose wishes may lead them into a harsh world. Father and son are both setting out on different journeys, but they do so with family connection still in view: Jinot writes so Elise will know his whereabouts, while Aaron leaves Jinot a message rather than departing without explanation.

Their destinations reflect different ways of approaching the past. Jinot’s proposed search for Josime is conditional on first completing the New Zealand journey; Aaron puts the family search first. His decision is also informed by Jinot’s account that Mi’kmaw old ways no longer exist as they once did, and that even Josime’s life is shaped by departure from them. Aaron nevertheless believes that what remains of those ways is worth seeking. His hope is not proof that he will recover an unchanged past; it is the reason he chooses to go.

Significance of the choice

The scene sets the commercial itinerary of timber against Aaron’s search for kin. Mr. Bone’s expedition follows the promise of kauri and an emerging overseas trade; Aaron turns away from it toward relatives, stories, and knowledge of a forest life his father describes as endangered. His departure therefore gives personal form to a wider tension in the novel: forests and Indigenous lifeways are increasingly altered by commercial expansion, while memory and family ties offer an incomplete but meaningful route toward continuity.

The ending deliberately leaves the search in motion. Aaron walks north, carrying hope rather than a settled account of the old ways. He does not join Jinot, and the promised later journey to Manitoulin Island remains unrealized within this scene. His letter keeps open a line of return between father and son, but his immediate act is a refusal of the future arranged for him and an independent attempt to locate his own place in the family’s history.