Peter Sel

Peter Sel’s brief reappearance in Sydney turns a homecoming into an encounter with change across generations. Owner of a fishing smack and father of Alik, he meets the returning Aaron Sel with caution, then speaks openly of his own violent past and invites Aaron to join the family’s work. The boat becomes the setting for an understated welcome: not a speech of reconciliation, but a conversation, a shared task, and a planned fishing trip.

Identity and Family

Peter is one of Kuntaw’s sons and the older brother of Etienne. His wife, Losa, is among five Mi’kmaw women Aaron sees together on the Sydney dock. They have sold their handiwork and are teasing Losa about a basket they consider too clumsy to sell; she carries it nonetheless. Their easy joking and apparent health affect Aaron, who is glad to hear Mi’kmaw women laugh. Peter’s fishing smack waits at the far end of the wharf, linking this scene of women’s trade and companionship to the family’s working life on the water.

Peter is also Alik’s father. During the voyage east from Sydney, he asks his son to take the rudder while he goes to speak with Aaron. Alik is eleven winters old, but Peter says he knows both the boat and the water. Aaron recognizes him as a good sailor. The detail gives the boat a place in family continuity: Peter entrusts it to his son even as he turns to an older relative whose return may renew other ties.

Meeting Aaron in Sydney

Aaron follows the basket makers aboard Peter’s vessel as it leaves Sydney harbor and heads east. He is preoccupied with pleas he plans to make to Kuntaw and Etienne: he wants them to travel west to the ruined wikuoms, help starving people, and bring them back to K’taqmkuk. Facing east in the bow, he questions what has changed in him, recalling his former self as someone who cared only for himself and acted on impulse. Peter approaches him without rushing to a demand. He remarks that Aaron is back and older; Aaron answers that Peter, too, has aged. Peter also acknowledges the sad news of Jinot’s death.

Their conversation begins with the possibility of change. Peter tells Aaron that a man can get better, then offers his own life as an example rather than as a lesson delivered from above. After the boat docks, while Alik coils a rope nearby, Peter explains that he used to drink rum, wine, and whiskey, and that drinking led him into frequent fights. He recalls killing a man during a drunken fight and trying to injure himself afterward. The account makes his confidence in change personal: he speaks as someone who once caused serious harm, not as someone untouched by the past.

Change and Welcome

Peter’s disclosure also reaches his son. Alik comes closer and listens as his father recounts the earlier violence; Aaron wonders whether Alik has heard the story before, though the scene does not settle that question. Peter’s past is thus not merely background to his conversation with Aaron. It becomes something he is willing to tell in front of the next generation, while his present conduct shows a different relationship to responsibility and family.

When Aaron asks whether Kuntaw is still alive, Peter replies that his father has more winters than can be counted. Kuntaw no longer hunts, Peter explains, but continues to lead the community and tell hunting stories. Aaron says he wants to go to Kuntaw, Etienne, and the others, to hear everything about his father’s death and to tell them what he has experienced. Peter lets him go ahead, saying that he, Alik, and Etienne will finish cleaning the boat and come later. Their plans are practical and communal: the three will go out early the next morning to catch fish for a celebration.

Aaron asks to come fishing and offers to help with the boat. Peter accepts this willingness without turning it into a grand declaration. His instruction about caring for the boat and its return care for its keeper expresses the reciprocity of the scene: a vessel must be maintained, work is shared, and a returning relative can begin again by taking part. Peter’s invitation does not resolve Aaron’s grief or the needs of those waiting in the west, but it gives his return an immediate place within family life.

Change and Welcome

Peter’s disclosure also reaches his son. Alik comes closer and listens as his father recounts the earlier violence; Aaron wonders whether Alik has heard the story before, though the scene does not settle that question. Peter’s past is thus not merely background to his conversation with Aaron. It becomes something he is willing to tell in front of the next generation, while his present conduct shows a different relationship to responsibility and family.

When Aaron asks whether Kuntaw is still alive, Peter replies that his father has more winters than can be counted. Kuntaw no longer hunts, Peter explains, but continues to lead the community and tell hunting stories. Aaron says he wants to go to Kuntaw, Etienne, and the others, to hear everything about his father’s death and to tell them what he has experienced. Peter lets him go ahead, saying that he, Alik, and Etienne will finish cleaning the boat and come later. Their plans are practical and communal: the three will go out early the next morning to catch fish for a celebration.

Aaron asks to come fishing and offers to help with the boat. Peter accepts this willingness without turning it into a grand declaration. His instruction about caring for the boat and its return care for its keeper expresses the reciprocity of the scene: a vessel must be maintained, work is shared, and a returning relative can begin again by taking part. Peter’s invitation does not resolve Aaron’s grief or the needs of those waiting in the west, but it gives his return an immediate place within family life.

Peter’s Confession and the Family’s Continuity

Peter’s confidence in change comes from experience. Once without a boat, he says, he drank rum, wine, whiskey, and other intoxicants, then fought constantly. In one drunken fight he killed a man; afterward, he tried to injure himself but only gave himself a headache. He changed because, as he explains, continuing to live meant he had to change. The confession gives substance to his earlier assurance to Aaron that a man can get better: Peter’s present life does not erase what he did, but it shows that his past need not determine every later choice.

Alik comes closer and listens while Peter tells this story. Aaron wonders whether Peter has shared it with his son before, but the scene leaves that uncertain. What is clear is that Peter speaks openly in Alik’s presence, placing a painful part of his history within the family’s hearing. The contrast between the man who once fought and drank and the father now entrusted with a boat—and willing to teach his son its work—makes change visible through responsibility rather than claim alone.

A Welcome Made Through Work

Peter’s welcome is practical rather than ceremonial. After Aaron says he wants to visit Kuntaw, Etienne, and the others, Peter tells him to go ahead while he and Alik finish cleaning the boat; he and Etienne plan to fish early the next morning for a celebration. Aaron asks to join them and offers to help with the vessel. Peter’s invitation gives that offer an immediate place in the family’s routine, without suggesting that shared work can undo the past or settle the needs Aaron has come to address.

The boat gathers several kinds of continuity into one scene. Peter has entrusted its rudder to eleven-year-old Alik, who already knows the vessel and the water; now Aaron, older and newly returned, offers to help care for it. Peter’s saying that care for the boat is answered by the boat’s care for its keeper makes the welcome reciprocal: belonging begins not in a declaration but in attending to shared work. His family’s fishing plan marks a modest beginning for Aaron’s return, while the questions he still intends to take to Kuntaw and Etienne remain open.