Bittersweet Infamy - #60 - Abandoned On Isle Royale

Episode Date: December 25, 2022

Holiday special! Taylor tells Josie and guest host Mitchell Collins about Angelique and Charlie Mott's Lake Superior struggle for survival through the winter of 1845–1846. Plus: separating the real from the fake in the outlandish world of Hallmark Christmas movies.

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Ho, ho, ho, everyone. Taylor here from the podcast you're just about to listen to. We love the holidays, so we've prepared a little treat for your stocking. Our first ever piece of paid content. But don't worry, it costs any amount of money you want. So if you want access to the bittersweet mixtape over an hour of exclusive content, special guests, and bloopers, lovingly kissed to life just for you, then go to ko-fi.com slash bittersweet.com and drop us whatever little bit of cash is on your heart. Enjoy your eggnog, enjoy the show, and stay sweet. Welcome to Bitter Sweden. I'm Taylor Basso and I'm Josie Mitchell. On this podcast,

we share the stories that live on and indeed. The strange and the familiar. The tragic and the comic. The bitter and the sweet. Taylor, are you into Christmas movies? Am I into Christmas movies? Yes, I'm not going to say no. I think last holiday with Queen Latifa is probably very underrated Christmas very underrated. I always want to watch that one and then no one's ever down and I'm pretty pissed about it. And Josie included. I'm always suggesting it. You're just going to call me out? I'm calling you out. It's that kind of podcast. Wow. We should watch the last holiday after this. Anyway, do you have but is that your favorite? Is that your favorite feeling? I don't know if I would say that it's my favorite. We should clarify, by the way, that the mood in the room may be a

little testy because Batman ate all the fucking chords, so we have to record from separate rooms. All the chords. Yeah, that's why I was calling you out. Now Taylor knows what to get us for Christmas. We should also probably say that this other voice is Mitchell. Yeah, Mitchell. Merry Christmas, Mitchell. Thanks. I'm great. I'm happy to be here. It has been nice to collaborate creatively with you, Mitchell. I'm working on a game. It's called Myrtle Porter, Murder Reporter. It's a playable murder mystery for Mac and PC. I'm doing the art, I'm doing the writing, I'm doing the coding, and Mitchell's doing my music. So I'm creatively shacking up with all the members of this household. You played it, yes. It's a good game. Excuse me.

Don't forget how I voice my murder. You do, and Josie, starring Josie Mitchell as Myrtle Porter. We can get you more lines, baby. I've been thinking about more lines. I've been thinking about more lines for your beautiful voice. Good, because I've been counting them over here. Put Myrtle's catchphrase again. Josie. I'm sorry to report there's been a murder. That's beautiful. Thank you. Okay. Taylor mouthing the lines. Was I? I have had that. I have had that bad habit for as long as I can remember. I used to do that when I was in high school plays. I would mouthe the other actor's lines because I wrote them. And so it's just me reciting my own fucking, anyway, sorry, go ahead, Mitchell. Oh, I was gonna say I've been enjoying writing the music and I enjoyed testing playing

it. I think was I the first person ever to play Murder Porter? Now that it actually resembles something like a finished product, yes, you are absolutely the first person to play most of that, which has been hard because I've been giving it to Mitchell full of like bugs and glitches. And I hate presenting unfinished art to people. So it's been a bit of a leap of faith. But it's like, it's collaborative. You're still working on it together. And Mitchell is also presenting to me music in various states of completion, and so on. So it's a lot of fun. A cozy, near future murder mystery. Neon colored murder mystery. Yes, it's very if you've ever played anything like the Nancy Drew Point and Click Adventure games, Phoenix Wright,

Danganronpa, anything like that, it's very, you know, go around, find some evidence, and fucking blast some perpetrators with it. That's the vibe. I'm so excited. Where can people find it, Taylor? Like once once it's ready? I have a very basic splash page set up at MyrtlePorter.com right now, but it's just a coming soon page. God willing, knock on wood. If there is interest in this, I hope to make this like a series of games. But the I'll let y'all know when I've posted the first one on itch.io, I think it's probably going to be the first place I posted. How about you? Okay, what about your favorite Christmas movie? I like this one. Have you seen The Silent Partner? I really like that one. It's about a mall employee who starts to think that the mall Santa is going

to rob the bank. And the main characters played by Elliot Gould, who is the ex husband of y'all's patron saint, Robert Streisand. I didn't know they had they had shocked up. Yeah. Oh yeah. You should look at their like honeymoon pics. Those are a good time. What kind of honeymoon pics are we talking here? You have some private time yourself. You take a look. Okay, shit. I'll get I'll get some I'll get out the Juergens and some Kleenex. They're just like posing in incredibly sick fits. It's that kind of shit. Like, he's got a luscious mustache and she's just like barb she's like Barbara in her prime. And they're just like posing in this incredible regalia. You got to check it out. I will give it a look on ironic. I will give that a look. That's my favorite. What's your

favorite, Josie? My favorite is I really like the animated how the Grinch stole Christmas. Like the little 20 minute one with like the yeah the bright colors and all the singing very nostalgic. Reminds me of my Aunt Becky and Uncle John's house. Aunt Becky from Full House and her husband John Stemos. Wow. Okay. So you're rolling with some some real high rollers. I grew up on that. She talks about that all the time. Me, the Olsen twins, Jody, Cameron, Candice, Candice, Cameron. Well, you went by you called her Cameron because you guys like you had a little nickname for her. Yeah, it was really. Do you ever fuck with a Hallmark a Hallmark style Christmas movie, Taylor? Yes, I would say that I fuck with a Hallmark style Christmas movie because

I love I specifically love the the one um well it's not one it's a it's a series where they keep adding characters played by Vanessa Hudgens. I like that one. Oh, those are good. I love those. Where every year it's like we we found a new chick who looks exactly like Vanessa Hudgens and and it turns into like kind of orphan black where there's like nine of them and they're all swapping identities and you you're trying to pick out which one's which it's good stuff. There's so I hope they keep making them so it gets more like dystopian or it gets more strange. There's just like nine of them there. Yeah, where they're like bumping each other off and like taking each other's places and shit. Yeah, like Jet Li like that Jet Li movie. Yeah, totally.

Just like that Jet Li movie. Yes. Yeah, that one's so good. So Josie and I today for the Minfamous we have a little story to tell you about Hallmark Christmas movies. All right, go for it. Apologies, Taylor. If there's some like smushing noises or heavy pet breathing. Oh, no problem. Batman is in the room for this one folks and he is acting all kinds of up. So be warned. If you hear a dog what sounds like a small dog just thunk head first into a window for attention, it's Batman. He hates Christmas. It's true. He's a Grinch. He like the Grinch does not have a favorite Christmas movie. That's a fact. Fair enough. He hates them all. Yeah, so Josie and I have a little Minfamous for you relating to Hallmark Christmas movies and then we will play a game,

a Christmas game. I love games, Christmas games especially. We know. We hoped you would say that. Okay, sick. I love when I get to play games on the podcast. Josie, do you want to get us started? Yeah, I do. So for whatever reason the algorithm has been giving me lots of news about Candice Cameron Burr. I say Burr or I've also heard Burre. Burre. It's Burre. She is married to Valerie Burre who is the brother of a very legendary Canucks player Pavel Burre who is like a very big name in Vancouver sports. So I do happen to have the definitive answer on this one. It's Burre. A little connection. Okay, Burre. A connection. Candy Burre. What other insights into Candice Cameron do you have for us, Taylor? I know that she is a woman of faith. I know that she's quite

a lordly, a lordly figure from a family of faith I would put to you. The brother who's okay. I don't remember the brother's name because in my head I was there's James Cameron in there, the guy who did Avatar. He's not in there. There's David Cameron who was like the PM. It's not him. Oh, is her brother the growing pains guy? Yeah. No, Kurt Cameron who is also a big name like Christian filmmaker. Holy shit. He was in like left behind but also growing pains. Yeah, and she was in Full House. They're a child acting sitcom dynasty. They're a dynasty of Christian actors. Oh my god. And she married into a dynasty of Russian hockey players. It's competing dynasty. Really, we should be following her around with a camera. A Candice camera Burre.

Well, especially now because she has hit the news more and more because so she had her full run with Full House and after it ended she was like 18. You know, she was a child star. She met her husband El Hockey player and they got married two years later. She had three kids and raised them in her 20s and then about in 2006 she came back to Hollywood. She came back to showbiz with a vengeance and that's a direct quote from Candy herself. Oh, damn. A vengeance. Okay. And she made a home for herself, made a star of herself with Hallmark films, Hallmark movies. And a big portion of those Hallmark films are Christmas films. And as a woman of faith, as a Lord Legal, as you noted, Taylor, Christmas is a very special time for Candy and her family. So in this last

year when Bill Abbott, the former, now former CEO of Hallmark, actually he's the CEO of the company that owns Hallmark, but it's Hallmark. Right. He got into a little controversy because he, with his direct authority, pulled an ad that showcased an LGBTQ couple and he purposely pulled it because it wasn't portraying family values. Yeah, okay. So he jumped ship from Hallmark and created his own production company called Great American Family. Guess who is an executive producer and creative content designer? CCB? CCB, my friend. C, C, B. Credence Clearwater Bavival. Exactly. For whatever reason, she's all been my algorithmic news because I don't know, I guess I'm a white lady in my 30s and I've seen a Hallmark movie. I don't know. Right, right.

But she's catching some interesting flak from her former Full House and Fuller House co-star, Jody Sweeten. Stephanie Tanner. Stephanie Tanner, right, who this past summer was protesting the Dobs decision, access to abortion, and got shoved down by an LAPD police officer. Oh, shit. Yeah, she's been Black Lives Matter. She has a very left-leaning political... Whereas her sister, no. Identity. Well, families, right? That's... It's hard with these Full Houses. So this new production company, Great American Family, which as Mitchell pointed out to me earlier, sounds a lot like some type of MAGA extinction. Yeah, I mean, not by accident, I'm sure. No. But this production company and Bill Abbott and

Candace Cameron Beret, they all differ a little bit from Trump and like Trumpian politics because it's not an overt, like, we don't want any gay people at all or we don't think, you know, anybody of the non-white race should be depicted in film. It's much more like, no, we just want to put Christ back in Christmas. And we just want traditional Christian Christmas movies, the traditional family. Right. Like, there's more and more kind of hallmarky movies that are moving into what our culture and society really is, which is diverse. Race mixing and homosexuals and all of these, yes. Yes, I understand. Yes, the actual reality of things. But hallmark's history with its Christmas movie does have its roots in conservative family values. Is that so? I was

researching about this. I was like, there was not always a time where every year everybody was just watching hallmark Christmas movies nonstop. Like, that started at some point and I wasn't sure when. I found out that the same dude who's involved in this story, Bill Abbott, founder of Great American Media, he was the dude who launched the hallmark movie channel back in 2001. And at that time, hallmark style Christmas movies were already kind of a thing in terms of, like, made for TV Christmas movies. Like, I remember watching movies like that with my sisters. There was a bunch that would come on ABC Family with like, Mimi Rogers in them. And yeah, it's like the same kind of thing. But a lot of times, like, they'd just be a whole mixed bag. And like, they're usually bad.

Usually they took place in the city. Usually there's some kind of magic, you know, it's not completely different than the movies that are made now. Those are the kind of movies that hallmarks started making when they were at the jump. They were making movies kind of like Lifetime was making or like ABC Family. But then came a movie called the Christmas card in 2006, Ed Asner, which was a massive hit, just like fucking massive. It, um, I've never heard of it. Okay, yeah, we hadn't either. But yeah, Ed Asner in it. Josie, do you want to like give a synopsis of it? So the premise of the Christmas card is a young woman by the name of Faith, who writes letters to the troops. Her church has a little active letter writing

campaign that they do. And she writes a letter, it gets to Afghanistan and a lonely soldier reads it. He is put on furlough. So he leaves Afghanistan and comes back to the city where Faith is from. And that's because one of his soldiers, he, oh, he goes and sees the widow of one of his soldiers who dies, right? Nevada City, California. Love it. Small town, picturesque, mountains, snow, slays. Wow, great for Christmas. Faith lives there with her two parents, her Godfarin parents, Ed Asner, and some other actress. And they run a mill, a lumber mill. They cut down trees, they make wood, they cut down Christmas trees. And so love story ensues, but he's like a bottled up soldier who doesn't know how to tell her that he's read her letter again and again and again.

She has a Napa Valley boyfriend who's all business and wants to travel the world and leave Nevada City because what good is there in the country in Nevada City? So that's where people have real hearts, where people know what the meaning of Christmas is. The lady who wrote it, her name's Joni Kane. She went to Nevada City to research it. And now there's like a day, Nevada City has a Joni Kane day. And people are still nuts about it. People flock every year, every Christmas to Nevada City. Like forks. Like forks for Twilight. Yes. That's so fun. I love that for Nevada City. You remember that 2006 Ed Asner movie? No, I'll let it tell you about it. But a lot of people do. It was a massive success for the channel. So much so that they changed

their entire, you know, what was once a greeting card company now became like a hallmark movie making machine. And now they make Christmas movies as the source of business. Yeah. So before the Christmas card, it was just like, you know, maybe we'll start this movie thing. Who knows. But after that movie, every October, they make 40 original Christmas films every single year. I admire the writers of the Hallmark Christmas movie because the Christmas movie is a genre where people actually don't really want to be surprised that much. There's a certain amount of formulaic you have to be when you're kind of churning out 40 fucking movies a year. But you also have to find a way to make them different. This one's about a soldier. This one's about a

young mother. Yeah, this one is a little bit of a mystery. This one has, you know, it's interesting. Yeah. How can you make this book of paint by numbers into still an evocative piece of art? That's interesting. You know, also interesting. Most of these movies shot in Vancouver. I know that I've seen them filming. There's all the time they're filming. Oh, plenty of times at UBC, downtown. So it's a little industry here, man. A big industry here. Yeah. And you're most likely a fucking extra in 40 a year. Yeah. You are definitely an extra in at least one, at least two, at least three. Four, five, 10. That is pretty funny that a lot of these movies, they're messages that like real Christmas is found in a small American town and that's where

a real Christmas lives. And in fact, it's in Canada. In fact, it's in a city where marijuana is legal and readily available. Okay, let's play this game. Ready to play the game? Yeah, let's play a Christmas game. Taylor Basso, are you ready to play Spot the Fake Hallmark movie? I think I'm going to be good at this, but I know that I got, I got cleaned out at April Fool's Day, so I should maybe approach this more humbly. I'm going to do my best. Yes, I'm ready. These Hallmark movies are fucking wild, dude. They're just well. Okay. Basically, we made up an entire synopsis of a Hallmark Christmas movie that doesn't exist and we put it alongside two real ones.

Okay. Three real ones, right? Three real ones. There's four in total. Three real ones, one fake. And there's no other rounds. One round, if you miss it, it's your only chance. Sudden death. Sudden death round. Spot the Fake Christmas movie. That's reasonable. We're going to give you a title and a synopsis of four movies and you pick the fake. We're also going to give you one actor from each one, but not counting Ed Asner because Ed Asner isn't all of them. Are you ready? Yeah, let's go. No pressure. It's Christmas. No pressure. I thrive under pressure. The first movie is called Santa Baby. After Father Time mistakenly sets back the Christmas clock, Santa is turned back into a baby and is stuck in small town Vermont with no way to get back to

the North Pole. With the help of Sarah, Ben and their dog Holly, can you find a way to get back home and say Christmas? Starring Kirsten Storms, the actress who played Xenon. The actress who played who? Xenon, girl of the 21st century. Okay. Oh, I don't make the rules. You don't, you don't recognize Kirsten Storms? That's a Disney channel. Oh, sorry. That has the whiff of truth to me, that one. Well, yeah. But perhaps it's just a very artful forgery. Let me give you another whiff, another Christmas whiff. Okay. Santa Junior, a public defender tries to help St. Nick's son, Chris Kringle Junior, after he's wrongfully accused of stealing Christmas presents. Starring Judd Nelson from the Breakfast Club. Yeah. That one scans is right. Judd Nelson is very much the

caliber of a celeb who would appear in one of these movies, because I'm thinking my comparison is the cast of Melrose Place, but I'm specifically thinking about Josie Bassett, who played Jane Mancini on Melrose Place. She was in those and I consider her like in a like a somewhat contemporary context, pretty much the exact same level of famous as Judd Nelson. So that's convincing. I also, I like that one as an allusion to Miracle on 34th Street. It's a well-trodden formula, but that could just make it again. Josie and Mitchell, I don't know to what degree. I'm looking for a Josie lie. I don't know how to spot a Mitchell lie. So that also creates a wild card. You all go ahead. What's number three? Number three, the Santa Stakeout. Tanya is a police

detective who was reluctantly partnered up with fellow officer Ryan to solve a string of heists taking place during high-profile holiday parties. This, of course, requires them to go undercover as newlyweds to stake out the case's prime suspect, starring Tamara Mowry from Sister Sister. So good, Paul. These people are all the same level of famous other than Kirsten Storms, who, Kirsten, if you're listening, I don't mean this disrespectfully. You're not batting at the same weight as Tamara Mowry. That, to me, Tia and Tamara are a package deal, though. I don't, I don't understand. And maybe that's rude. I'm sorry to Tamara Mowry. Actually, you're your own person. I'm going to get myself in trouble here. Let's go on to number four. Okay, number four,

last and final, single Santa seeks Mrs. Claus. That's the title, the whole title. A lonely, beautiful widow and her son meet the handsome, firstborn son and heir of the real Santa Claus when he leaves the North Pole to find a wife in time for Christmas, starring Steve Gutenberg. Three men and a baby. These are all the same level of famous other than Kirsten Storms. This is hard. Okay, I think that the Kirsten Storms one is real because of Kirsten Storms, frankly. Like, I don't know. That's a weird actor to ask, Paul, but maybe you did. So, remind me again, we've got our riff on Miracle on 34th Street. We've got a couple posing together as newlyweds and we've got Horny Santa seeks Mrs. Claus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's the actor in the one

where the couple is posing undercover? That's Tia. Yeah, it's Tamara. Tamara, not Tia. Tamara, Maori. I'm sorry, Tamara. That's the fake one. Just to make sure, you think the fake one is, what's the title again, Michelle? The Santa's Stakeout. The Santa's Stakeout. More like the Santa's Stakeout. Taylor, you are wrong. So it goes. Okay, to be fair, they are all Hallmark movie actors and actresses. I'm always looking for ways to cheat. What's the, what's the fake one? The fake one is Santa Baby starring Kirsten Storms. Why, why Kirsten Storms? Because she's in another Hallmark movie. She's in another one. No, poor Kirsten Storms. On Christmas. Also her name. But I don't know, I was afraid you would be tipped off based on the synopsis that we wrote,

which is that Father Time turns Santa back into a baby and he's stuck in Vermont. You think that would, I mean, yeah, that would happen. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't wonder about that. No. Yeah, I guess so. I did, what's it called? I ran it through, like I noticed it. I was like, that's ridiculous. And then I was like, is that ridiculous in a way that any other Hallmark movie about Christmas you've seen is? And I was like, no, that's scans. That's fine. Yeah. Why would he get stuck in Vermont? Because that's where the sleigh crashed. Who fucking knows? You can magic out for a reason. It's very, they write 40, 40 of these a year and you don't think they can find a reason to get Baby Santa in Vermont? I don't know, it was a good fake. It was a good fake. Thank you. Thank you. I'm now like

zero for three on this guessing shit or zero for whatever. I'm very bad at the guessing. I love the game still. Please keep bringing me games. I won't win them, but I enjoy them. Beautiful. I won't remember them. That's great. I can bring you the same game over and over, 50 years games. Hey, we're all three of us in different rooms, but through this podcast, we can spend our Christmas together. And that includes you, the silent fourth person in the room, the listener as well. As well as even Batman. And Batman. As well as even Batman. Even Batman, the cure of cords. We will be spending our Christmas together on Isle Royal in Lake Superior. The largest and most imposing of the five great lakes that share the border between Canada and the

US. Isle Royal is the settler name, the Ojibwe who used the land back to prehistoric times called the island Minong. It's Isle Royal with an E at the end, by the way, which would lead you to think that it's pronounced Isle Royale, but not so evidently. The island is 45 miles long and nine miles wide, the fourth largest lake island in the world. While the uninhabited Isle Royal is technically considered part of QAnon County from Michigan's beloved upper peninsula, it's closer to Thunder Bay, Ontario, about 15 miles away from the shore. What a cozy binational locale. Very that. It's right next to the maritime border between Canada and the US. Maybe it should have a lighthouse or does have a lighthouse,

like P-coats and beanies. It has a lighthouse now. During the time of the story that I'm about to tell you, it would not have had a lighthouse. Oh, okay. A little history. It was a little darker and spookier and more foreboding back then, but even now it's quite a force in and of itself. Isle Royal and the 400 small islands around it comprise one of continental America's least visited state parks, although as the park rangers will tell you during their spiel, it's among the most revisited. Oh, the people love it. The people love it. I've seen good reviews of it. I've read this nice couples blog, travel blog that I'll shout out in the end credits. They reviewed it quite positively. It's a bit of a pain in the ass to get to, but it's supposedly quite beautiful.

You guys, let's go and then go back. Yeah, so we can be statistics. And so evidently, the sparse attendance is a commentary not on the beauty of the island, which gives it its revisitability, but its remoteness. It's plunked in the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area, roughly the size of Maine. The US state says Reverend George Grant, who is part of Sanford Fleming's 1872 expedition through Canada, those who have never seen Superior get an inadequate, even inaccurate idea by hearing of it spoken as a lake. Though its waters are fresh and crystal, Superior is a sea. It breeds storms and rain and fog like the sea. It is wild, masterful, and dreaded. Masterful. I like that. That's cool. It's Superior, some might say.

In order to reach Isle Royale in the modern day, you'll need to travel by ferry, sea plane, or private boat from the Cuenau Peninsula of UP Michigan, or Grand Portage, Minnesota. Another one of those words that you would think is fresher than it is because it's got knee on the end, but not so. Portage. The ecological features of the island include its mammals, moose, wolves, rabbits, red foxes, beavers and river otters, and other aquatic friends. All kinds of amphibians and reptiles, including snakes, plant life, to include ferns, mosses, a boreal forest of spruce, fern, birch, reaching upwards. Just your standard rocky island in a freezing cold lake, whose inaccessibility makes it a vibrant home for any species whose ancestors were brave enough

to swim over or find an ice bridge. Do you ever look at the little cabins, cottages, fancy small houses with all sorts of shenanigas that people build on these inaccessible remote islands, and part of you is like, oh yeah, and then the other part of you knows like, oh I bet getting milk is hard. Like shit like that, the island stuff, you know? Yeah, that's true. They're not going to deliver the milk to your door, that's for sure. And they certainly won't on Isle Royale. But I guess that's part of their romance too, right? The separation, the isolation, yeah. One part of that is very romantic and the other part is like spooky as fuck. I'm trapped on this island, it's infested with alligators, bunnies,

whatever. Would you just say Josie? Terrifying. Trapped on this island? I said trapped on this island at Christmas. That would be a real shame. Moving on, Isle Royale or Manong is also an island rich with copper, which has been a prize resource in this area, the kind of lake superior area throughout the centuries, first for the local indigenous groups, the Ojibwe and more broadly the Anishinaabe, and later for European settlers hoping to turn a profit. Says Qanabe, Mining Technical Assistant Jessica Koski. I was taught by the Anishinaabe elders that copper is an important element. It was used to make tools and serves as a conduit for energy and purifier of water. For instance, the Anishinaabe traditionally

used copper for carrying water and we still use it today for water ceremonies and other ceremonies. Yeah, according to scholar Susan R. Martin, a 19th century Ojibwe man once described copper as wonderful power. It was the desire for this wonderful power and the accompanying financial benefits that brought a scouting party to Isle Royale in 1845 looking for copper. Among that party were an Anishinaabe woman, Angelique Mott and her French-Canadian settler husband, Charlie, and unbeknownst to Angelique and Charlie, they were about to have a very shitty Christmas and an even worse new year. We're going hysterical before electricity, before hallmark, before... Lighthouses, pre-lighthouse. Pre-lighthouse? A lighthouse was just a really tall dude with

a candle back in the day. It's all they've got. You never know what's gonna hit. You never know what's gonna hit. Mitchell, have you ever been to this part of the world, that kind of this part of America, kind of Upper Peninsula, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin area? No, Josie was just asking me that. I've always wanted to go. I've heard there's a slap in shipwreck museum in the Upper Peninsula that I've always wanted to go to. I've also just like heard a lot of... yeah, I've heard a lot of cool things about Ubers and the folks that live up there and always wanted to go and I'd never heard of this island but I really want to go here now. It's a part of the world I've been interested in going to. Well, they have great islands to starve on and I'm gonna tell you about

one of them. This is an interesting one because the entire account that we have that really that these people kind of exist or ever inhabited this island is a 2119 word account in its entirety and it is a footnote. It's just a big, long footnote in this fucking weird, dry-sounding 1907 book called The Honorable Peter White Colon, A Biographical Sketch of the Lake Superior Iron Country by Ralph D. Williams. Okay. Because it's this book of, I guess, Lake Superior or mining history, it's not so unusual that a footnote might just be this woman telling her story that has everything to do with with Copper and Lake Superior, right? Yeah. But I guess because it's so tangential, it kind of gets edited out of future publishings of that and in spite of this,

it kind of manages to get reproduced in various places. It gets run in its entirety in the Toronto Telegram in 1934. It ends up in a lot of like crazy, true stories from this part of the world compilations, like often just unedited, often just Angelique, her 2000 word account of this story that she gave to Ralph Williams. Right. Nothing else. Yeah. Just that. We don't really have anything else. The next thing that you kind of hear about this is it catches the fancy of a writer named James R. Stevens who writes this novella in 2010 called Angelique Abandoned. I didn't read it. It's well reviewed. It gets made into a movie in 2012 called Abandoned Angelique's Isle that is directed by Michelle DeRosier who is Anishinaabe from the Magizzi

Sagaigan Eagle Lake First Nation as well as Marie Helen Cousinot. It's on 2BTV in America. You can watch it if you want. Oh, that's for free too. Yeah. It stars Julia Jones as Angelique Mott and Charlie Carrick as Charlie Mott said DeRosier, I felt connected to Angelique. I want our women to see how incredibly strong they are. So outside of this 2100 word account of their time on Isle Royal we really know very little about Angelique and Charlie as fleshed out human beings. But if we take what we know about them and look at the time and place they lived, we can fill in a few of the gaps. Okay. Charlie Mott was one of the Voyageurs, a legendary group of strapping young French-Canadian men who transported furs across the land and sea of

the country's wilderness at considerable personal risk during the 18th and 19th centuries. Are you telling me he was hot? He was very foxy in the movie. Okay. So was she. They were an attractive couple. This meant a lot of rowing perilous waters, portaging canoes against, is it portage or portage? In my head I've always pronounced this portage, portaging canoes. What do you do with a canoe? I portage it. Okay. Mitchell, would you portage or portage it? I would definitely portage, definitely. Okay. Okay. So we're portaging canoes. The verb is portage. Sick. You couldn't catch me portaging anything. Disgusting. Flop behavior, beta male behavior. Josie, are you a beta male? Yeah. Hot. You know who is a beta male is Batman. Yeah,

he stands for beta male. You can't spell beta man without Batman. Where's bullying this tiny little dog? You know what? He is a sweet, darling, handsome little boy. He's been very naughty tonight and I think his punishment should be like a gentle roasting from his friends. I think so too. Yes. But it's not personal. We love you Batman. Anyway, back to Voyager. They're rowing perilous water. They're portaging canoes across fast stretches of land, singing whimsical folk tunes to distract from the fact that any of this can kill you at any moment. By the time of this story, the heyday of the Voyager is nearing its decline due to a combination of evolving technology and trade monopolies. The Voyagers, very young men as they were,

often found romantic partners amongst the local indigenous groups who were themselves very active in trapping, trading and selling furs. So it was with Charlie and his wife Angelique. What do we know about Angelique? She was Anishinaabe, an indigenous group that originated on the northeast coast of what is now called Canada in the United States and migrated to the western shores of Lake Superior, and one of which the Ojibwe are a subgroup, with apologies if that simplification loses any nuance. History remembers Angelique as a physically strong figure, quoting an anecdote from the 1907 book The Honorable Peter White. I don't know who that is, by the way. But he's honorable. He's a good guy. That might be like a little tongue-in-cheek,

like that might be a little like fucking Frasier Crane bonbon, you know, a wink-wink. We're just not enough in the know about Lake Superior, Iron Country, to get the nudge. Really what it means is bait-a-mail. Yeah, yeah. Peter White's a cock. Okay, but in this, in this account, quote, there is a story that says a Frenchman made her a bet that she couldn't carry a barrel of pork to the top of a nearby hill and back. She won it with ease, and when she finished, she volunteered to carry the barrel up again, but this time with the Frenchman on top of it. In this version of things, she's the big jacked sister from Incanto. Am I getting them all right? Yeah. However, our young bride is 17 during the course of this story, so figure

that into your mental image as well. Okay. So a bit of a companion to our season premiere. We've got another 17-year-old girl spending a very shitty Christmas in the trees. Yeah, on Christmas Day, yeah. Angelique is also a devout Christian, having been gotten to by European missionaries, and as you'll see during the story, she's actually quite scornful of some of the traditional Indigenous beliefs. This account includes some historical racial terminology, so heads up in advance. Thank you. No problem. The movie, Abandoned Angelique's Isle, appears to have been written by Michelle DeRosier, the director, one of the directors. The way they treat in the movie, Angelique's Christian faith is interesting, because she kind of renounces it by the end.

There's a scene with the two of them, the married couple on the beach, and it's shortly after they've been left there, and they're not quite abandoned yet. They're just like, well, we'll just wait for them to come back. We're not quite there yet. There's a scene where he's talking to her about, like, here is my belief of how the universe is the veil between us and the creators and whatever, and Angelique is kind of like, no, you dumb fuck, there's only Jesus. She doesn't say it like that, but she's thinking it. Then later on, without spoiling too much about where the story goes, she's kind of invoking the creators in the way that she's speaking and thinking. And that didn't really happen with The Real Angelique. When Angelique is

giving this account back, she's still very much in the Jesus Club. She's baby J all the way. I understand why, based on the vast sprawling landscape of terrible shit that has been done in the name of Christianity to Indigenous people in Canada, why it felt important and the world over in the name of colonialism, why it felt important to have the kind of leading Indigenous female character be the one to vocalize those sentiments. So I'm not going to be the one to go all cancel culture on Angelique, but it's just a part of her story, right? It's just a part of the complicated reality of life. In 1845, shortly after their marriage, our friends Angelique and Charlie end up in La Pointe, Wisconsin. Yet another word you would think would be La Pointe,

because it's got an E on the end, but no. It's just that part of the world. It's... We're in the chop in the E country. We're chopping this Wisconsin-ish, you know? And I think from here, with the exception of me popping in a couple of times to offer context, I'm just going to let Angelique take over. Okay. Whoa, Angelique in the house. So we got... I've preserved almost the entirety of Angelique's account, and let's just hear her out. Oh, okay, cool. When I and my husband Charlie Mott were first married, we lived in La Pointe.

Mr. Douglas and Mr. Bernard and some of the other big bugs from Detroit had come up there on the Schooner Elgonquin looking for copper. I'm already popping in. Sorry. Here, my guesses are she's referring to Joab Bernard and either Columbus C. Douglas or his cousin Douglas Hutton. All big names in the local mining history, but in any event, they're not important characters in this story. They're here to act on behalf of Cyrus Mendenhall, another big bug with a long history mining the area. Love the term big bug. Fantastic. I will be stealing that, Angelique. Thank you. There's a whole etymology I found of it online about how, if I can dig it back up, I'll put in the credits, about how it started off as this kind of playful term, but it ends up being quite

scornful akin to Fat Cat. It's something that if you live in the farm, you might say it about someone in Washington, D.C. with contempt in your voice that like, oh, there's big bugs in Washington, D.C. So can you tell us his name one more time? Cyrus Mendenhall. So I'm imagining him like he's got a plaid vest and a pocket watch, and he's very greedy. You know, like the villain and monsters incorporated? I'm imagining that guy. He definitely has a pocket watch, and he checks it to display to you that you are wasting his time kind of vibes. Like you haven't been speaking too long. I'm looking at my pocket watch. I see him with like some strange but like fashionable for the time. Absolutely. Where it's like big mutton chops and then like just like a chin thing.

Has shaved off just the middle of the mustache for some reason. Yeah. Yeah. It was hot in the 1840s for two years and then never again. Yeah. Never came back. That fashion. He actually killed it. He was the reason that people didn't keep it. Well, in the 1850s after this story takes place, Mendenhall would be instrumental in stopping President Zachary Taylor's order to deport Native Americans from Michigan and Wisconsin, much to the shared relief of the enmeshed Indigenous and settler communities and industries of this era. Based on that, you'd expect him to be a pretty good guy in the context of this story, but not so. Well, yeah. We contain multitudes, I suppose. Don't we just? This came afterwards, so perhaps he learned something from his conduct in this story.

In 1844, Mendenhall set up the Lake Superior Copper Company. It was one of many similar organizations comprised of settlers looking to take advantage of a resource boom. While the area had been mined by European settlers since the 1770s, sale of copper wire leapt on May 24th, 1844, after the message, what have God wrought, was sent by Telegraph from Washington to Baltimore, sparking the electronic communication era. Oh. Cheerful. Interesting. What have God brought? Electronic communication, which, I mean, I'm kind of fine with that.

We wouldn't have Zoom. We wouldn't have this podcast. We wouldn't have podcasts. That's true. Thank you, God. And if we're going to make it point being, we need to make more copper wire, so we need more copper. And so, eyes turned to the Q and R Rift jutting out into Lake Superior. I've seen this described many ways. I've seen it described as the world's most important native source of copper. I've seen it described by Q and R Geo Heritage as a cosmic oddity in its abundance of copper. And of course, indigenous folks have been mining the area since well before written history in what the National Park Service calls the oldest known metalworking in North America. Whoa. That's interesting. So that is our, I think our table is pretty much set. Angelique.

From the point, Charlie and I went over with them on their invitation to Isle Royale. After landing with the rest, I wandered a long way on the beach until I saw something shining in the water. It was a piece of mass copper. It's just like a big ass copper boulder. When I told the Algonquin people of it, so this is the people of the Algonquin schooner, which is ironically seems to be a bunch of white dudes. They end up, the Algonquin is a big ass schooner that worked Lake Superior. They were very glad and determined at once to locate it. They said if Charlie and I would occupy it for them, so set up camp there so nobody else can take this stake. Charlie should have $25 a month and I $5 a month to cook for him. What do you think of that deal? Let's,

let's figure out what that is. It's 1845. Yeah. USD 1845 to now a dollar in 1845 is worth $39 and 21 cents today. So what's 3921 Jesus Christ times five math. That's $196 a month. Josie, for you, if you were Angelique to cook for Mitchell, who would, if he is Charlie, be making, you can swap those two. You can be the Voyager and you can be, I do all the cooking around our house. So yeah, Mitchell does do all the cooking. So and then Josie can have $25 a month, which is that times five. So $980 a month. What do you think now? I would take it to just sit there to guard this rock. Don't take that. But do you want that to be your purpose, though? That's a bit waiting for Godot, isn't it? Just, just make sure the rock doesn't fly away. You know what I mean? That's

kind of fucked up. You have a lot of existential problems. I'm projecting onto you. I would have a lot of existential problems. I've been looking at a lot of, um, at a lot of writer's residencies. We're essentially this. Stay in one spot and we'll give you money. Look at this rock and write about it. We have $10,000 from the government for something. Yeah. There's some poetry to it. You know, I don't know if, yeah, what's his name was seeing it that way, but it ties back into what we were talking about earlier too is like, literally, I'm saying again to a young soon-to-be-married couple. They were a young married couple. I'm saying, just take up some residency on this little island all by yourself and I'll pay you to be there and I'll pay you to cook for him.

Seems like a pretty good deal. Yeah, you're not alone. You're with somebody that you want to be with. Yeah, hopefully. Otherwise, you shouldn't have gotten married, but that is a conversation for some other time. You've got lots of time to hash this out on the island. Exactly. So, Charlie and Angelique, like yourselves, agree to these terms and they go back to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario for supplies, quoting Angelique. There I first met Mendenhall, the man who brought us into all this trouble. He said there was no need of carrying provisions so far up the lake and at so heavy an expense as he had plenty of provisions at La Pointe. When we got to La Pointe, we found that this was not so. All we could get was a half barrel of flour, which we had to borrow

from the mission. I'm not going to get into borrowed flour. Flour economy was different back then. Six pounds of butter that smelt badly and was white like lard and a few beans. So, that's what we've got. We've got a half barrel of flour, borrowed flour, you've got to pay it back. We have a few beans. I'm going to need more beans than that. Not a literal few. Let's say a colloquial few. You know, some indeterminate amount of beans. X beans. A gathering. A flock. A pot. A pot of beans. A murder of beans. A murder of beans. I could murder some beans right now. A fart of beans. Hey, bro, you want to lose beans? Okay. Angelique says, I didn't want to go to the island until we had something more to live on and I told

Charlie so, but Mendenhall over persuaded him. He solemnly promised him two things. First, that he would send a bateau with provisions in a few weeks, and then at the end of three months, he would be sure to come himself and take us away. So, this is a three month gig. Okay, yeah. And it's been a confirmed three months. We'll come get you and we will send you more supplies in a couple of weeks from when you land on Alra. What time of year are we talking? Because I'm sure winter has a factor in this situation. First of July is when we're going. It's beautiful. Yeah, three months. She says, so very much against my will, we went to Alrauel on the first of July. So, she's still fighting it,

but July, August, September, your home for Halloween. You can plan your costume. Yeah, but I do get like, if it were May 1, that would make me feel better. Yeah. You know, yeah, you'd be warming up rather than cooling down. Put it to you this way. Isle Royal National Park, such as it exists, I believe is open from mid-April to early November. So, right now it's closed. We couldn't go really spend Christmas there if we wanted because it's closed for the season. So, I gather that you don't really want to be there before April and you don't really want to be there after November because, well, things might get a bit hairy. Having a bark canoe in a net for a while, we lived on fish,

but one day about the end of summer, a storm came and we lost our canoe and soon our net was broken and good for nothing also. Oh, shit. Oh, how we watched and watched and watched, but no bateau ever came to supply us with food. No vessel ever came to take us away, neither Mendenhals nor any other. When at last we found that we had been deserted and that we would have to spend the whole winter on the island and that there would be no getting away until spring, I tell you such a thought was hard to bear indeed. Our flour and butter and beans were gone. We couldn't catch any more fish. Nothing else seemed left to us but sickness, starvation, and death itself. All we could do was eat bark and roots and bitter berries that only

seemed to make the hunger worse. Oh, sir, hunger is an awful thing. It eats you up so inside and you feel so all gone as if you must go crazy. If you could only see the holes I made around the cabin and digging for something to eat, you would think it must have been some wild beast. Oh, God, what I suffered there that winter from that terrible hunger, Grace, helped me. I only wonder how I ever lived through it. Holy fucking Jesus Christ! What? So, quick tailor note, you might be like, why don't they try to kill a moose? Aren't there meese on this aisle? Yeah, what about the meese? They would not arrive on the island until the turn of the 20th century and wolves wouldn't arrive until 1948. So on a plus side, you can't get killed by others. Yeah, the wolves apparently

came over on an ice bridge that was local to one winter. So on the plus side, neither of these things can kill you on the downside other than rabbits, not much to hunt. And between Charlie's voyager background and Angelique's knowledge of Anishinaabe foraging and hunting techniques, they're a resourceful duo, but really you can only eat so much bark. Fair enough. Angelique, five days before Christmas, for you may be sure, we kept account of every day. Everything was gone. There was not so much as a single bean. The snow had come down thick and heavy. It was bitter, bitter cold, and everything was frozen as hard as a stone. We hadn't any snowshoes. We couldn't dig any roots. We drew our belts tighter and tighter, but it was no use.

You can't cheat hunger. You can't fill up that inward craving that gnaws within you like a wolf. Charlie suffered from it even worse than I did. As he grew weaker and weaker, he lost all heart and courage. Then fever set in. It grew higher and higher until at last he went clear out of his head. One day, he sprang up and seized his butcher knife and began to sharpen it on a wet stone. He was tired of being hungry, he said. He would kill a sheep, something to eat he must have. And then he glared at me as if he thought nobody could read his purpose but himself. I saw that I was the sheep he intended to kill and eat. All day and all night long, I watched him and kept my eyes on him, not daring to sleep and expecting him to spring upon me at any moment.

But at last, I managed to rest the knife away from him and that danger was over. Donner party shit! That was well, she's a really good writer. That's some good shit. Well, she's not writing it. She's telling this to Ralph Williams, who is transcribing it, but yeah, she's got a silver tongue for telling stories. After the fever fits were gone and he came to himself, he was as kind as ever and I never thought of telling him what a dreadful thing he had tried to do. I tried hard not to have him see me cry as I sat behind him, but sometimes I couldn't help it as I thought of our hard lot and saw him sink away and dry up until there was nothing left of him but skin and bones.

At last, he died so easily that I couldn't tell just when the breath did leave his body. Oh no, he dies right in front of her? Yeah, a pretty long protracted awful death, unfortunately. Oh my god. Oh, yeah, death by starvation, that is. No, no, we don't recommend it if you can help it. Says Angelique, this was another big trouble, understating it a little. Now that Charlie was dead, what could I do with him? I washed him and laid him out, but I had no coffin for him. How could I bury him when all around it was either rock or ground frozen as hard as rock? And I could not bear to throw him out into the snow. For three days,

I remained with him in the hut and it seemed almost like company to me, but I was afraid that if I continued to keep up the fire, he would spoil. The only thing I could do was leave him in the hut where I could sometimes see him and go off and build a lodge for myself and take my fire with me. Having sprained my arm in nursing and lifting Charlie, this was very hard work, but I did it at last. Oh, my gosh. What? Yeah, yeah. She builds another lodge? With one arm. Cheebies. I would have just constructed like a lean to very rudimentary shelter and put Charlie in it and like lived in my hut and gone on my business.

Says Angelique. Then came another big trouble. Oh, what a trouble it was. The worst trouble of all. So we've got, we've got worse yet troubles coming. Angelique. Poor Angelique. Yes, I know. My heart goes out to her. You ask me if I wasn't afraid when thus left alone on the island, not of the things you speak of. Sometimes it would be so light in the north and even way up overhead like a second sunset that the night seemed to turn into day, but I was used to the dancing spirits and was not afraid of them. I was not afraid of the Maki Minato or bad spirit, for I'd been brought up better at the mission than to believe all the stories that the Indians told about him. I believed that there was a Christ and that he would carry me through if I prayed to

him. But the thing that most of all I was afraid of and that I had to pray hardest against was this. Sometimes I was so hungry, so very hungry, and the hunger raged so in my veins that I was tempted. Oh, how terribly was I tempted to take Charlie and make soup of him. I knew it was wrong. I felt it was wrong. I didn't want to do it, but someday the fever might come on me as it did on him. And when I came to my senses, I might find myself in the very act of eating him up. Thank God, whatever else I suffered, I was spared that. But I tell you of all the other things, that was the thing of which I was most afraid and against which I prayed the most and fought the hardest. Can I just say, I would have been making Charlie soup on day one, like right away.

Like they had literally just laughed. You didn't even know that the the battoe wasn't coming yet. You're just already, you're already sharpened. I just feel like, I mean, I'm not saying I would have killed him or anything, but after he passed, it would be like, okay, well, that sucked. There again, making Charlie soup. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to be closer to him. How good is a frozen skinny dead body? That's probably horrible. But are you starving to death? Maybe you're gonna die? I think you eat anything. That's fair. They're eating bark. I love soup too. Yeah. I don't know. Especially in the soup form, it sounds very, very eatable. The soup really, you know, you just wish you had those few beans still kicking around. Yeah, that's true. So a few things here. First,

obviously, the effects of colonialism in full effect. Angelica's internalized some of the not so nice lessons from the Christians at the mission. Yes. Second, holy shit. Holy fucking shit. That goes without saying. And then third, when she says Mackie Minato here, it seems like she's talking about, I found it named Maji Minato. It's a folkloric ogre in the sort of indigenous folklore of that area, who terrorizes a local village by making its young men race for their lives against him. And he always cheats to win. That's that's Maji Minato's thing. Cool. A malevolent trickster. Yeah, a very malevolent trickster who like decimates the male population of this village by racing against cheating and then killing all of its young men. And then eventually this,

in the version that I read, this kind of like a magic figure comes down into the village one day and is able to kind of like deceive Maji Minato into eating something that doesn't agree with him. And then the next day he's got the shits too bad to win the race. Well, it's not the shits necessarily, but like he's having really bad digestive issues. Some tummy troubles. Some tummy troubles. And then this kind of like heavenly warrior wins this fight and he bashes Maji Minato over the head with his club and that's him dead forever because that's the terms of the race. You lose, you die. That's so cool. That's where he gets killed off. Angelique says,

When that dreadful thought came over me, so this thought of making soup of Charlie, or I wished to die or die quick rather than suffer any longer and I could do nothing else than I would pray, and it always seemed to me after praying hard something would turn up or I would think of something that I had not thought of before and have new strength given me to fight it out still longer. One time in particular, I remember not long after Charlie's death and when things were at their very worst, for more than a week I had nothing to eat but bark and how I prayed that night that the good god would give me something to eat lest the ever-increasing temptation would come over me at last. The next morning when I opened the door, I noticed for

the first time some rabbit tracks. It almost took away my breath and made my blood run through my veins like fire. In a moment, I had torn a lock of hair out of my head and was platting strands to make a snare for them. As I said it, oh she's on the job, as I said it, I prayed that I might catch a fat one and catch him quick. That very day I caught one and so raging hungry was I that I tore off his skin and ate him up raw. So she's having some rabbit sushi. Don't stop. Get it, get it. It was very nearly a week before I caught another and so it was often for weeks together. The thing seemed so very strange to me that though I had torn half the hair out of my head to make snares, never once during the whole winter did I catch two rabbits at one time. Just kind of just amusing.

It's like I was always one rabbit at a time. That kind of sucks. Ah funny how it was always one. Anyway. Also why not just cut your hair? There's a butcher knife there. You think you're better at this than Angelique? No, no sir. So let's move forward. Oh how heavily did the time hang upon me? It seemed as if the old moon would never wear out and the new one never come. At first I tried to sleep all that I could but after a while I got into such a state of mind and body that I could scarcely get any sleep night or day. When I sat still for an hour or two my limbs were so stiff and dried up that it was almost impossible for me to move them at all. So at last like a bear in a cage I found myself walking all the time. It was easier to walk than

to do anything else. When I could do nothing else to relieve my hunger I would take a pinch of salt. You get a little bit of salt when it's really really too much to bear. You get a pinch of salt for your time. I'm surprised that she was the walking is expending energy. I would think that you would want to keep that in but I understand too that if you like stayed still you could just use it or lose it. Utatrophy. Yeah true. Damn dude. Early in March I found a canoe that had been cast ashore and which I mended and made fit for you so we've got some good luck. Oh whoa big one yeah. Part of the sail so I don't know there's a sail in this canoe that's I yeah with these Lake Superior canoes. Part of this probably in case you get caught in like a wind

situation in Lake Superior right? I don't know. Part of the sail I cut up and made the strips into a net. Soon the little birds began to come and I knew that spring was coming in good earnest. God indeed had heard my prayer and I felt I was saved. Once more I could see my mother. One morning in May I had good luck fishing and caught no less than four mullets at one time. Just as I was cooking them for breakfast I heard a gun and I fell back almost fainting. Then I heard another gun and I started to run down to the landing but my knees gave way and I sank to the ground. Another gun and I was off to the boat in time to meet the crew when they came ashore. The boat here is the Schooner Elgonquin captained by John McKay the

very boat that brought the initial proposition of the Isle Royal journey to the Mott's. Ah, fuckers. The very first man that landed was Mendenhall and he put up his hand to shake hands with me, which I did. Where is Charlie, said he. I told him he was asleep. He might go up to the hut and see for himself. Then they all ran off together. When Mendenhall went into the hut he saw that Charlie was dead. The men took off Charlie's clothes and shoes and saw plain enough that I had not killed him but that he had died of starvation. When I came up Mendenhall began to cry and to try to explain things. He said that he had sent off a bateau with provisions and didn't see why they didn't get to us but the boys told me it was all a lie. Fuck Mendenhall, man.

He's like, do you didn't kill him? Let's inspect the body, make sure she didn't kill him. By the way, I meant to send provisions. Jeez. Angelique says, I was too glad to get back to my mother to do anything. I thought his own conscience ought to punish him more than I could do. That is the end of Angelique's account. We know that she lived till 1874, which puts her dying around 46 years old in Sioux Saint Marie, Ontario, in what again is now called Canada. We know that she got back to her mother and she ends up at one point as a cook for a family called the Harlow's and she's in that position when she relates this tale to Ralph Williams. Other than that, we know very little else about her life in

times. One of the small islands below the eastern tip of Isle Royale is named Mott Island. If you want to visit the island yourself, Isle Royale National Park reopens April 15th. Among other amenities, there are a visitor's center, a couple of restaurants, a convenience store, and a lodge where according to visitors, you'll get the best night's sleep of your life, a far sight from the frozen rock that Angelique Mott stared down and won almost 200 years ago. The end. Merry Christmas and happy holidays. Wow. Cool. Such an interesting choice to most of the words are not yours. I really love that. Yeah, I couldn't tell it better than she could. I kept looking for, I was like, no. I was looking for ways to elaborate upon what she was saying, but other than,

again, giving the context of like, okay, here's what a voyageur is. Here's what, you know, copper mining in Q and I Count. He looks like blah, blah, blah. I didn't really have much more to give than she did. She gave it all. And then some. Damn. Angelique, I couldn't even imagine living on an island with your dead husband. Like that's starving on an island. And seating the home to him. He gets the home. Yeah. That's tough. I know. After he's dead. You just take your sad little sprained arm outside and be like, I'll just pray to God that I don't eat him. Like, those are hard times. It's a hard, a hard Christmas. Right. Yeah. It's interesting how she was doing much better than him the whole

way. Like he's starving to death, literally. And like imagining her as a chicken wing. And she's like, oh, man, he's about to try to eat me. And meanwhile, like she's doing okay. And she like gets the knife off him. Yeah, she's like, let me grab the knife. Casually glosses over that she wrestled the knife from him in his state of madness where he was sitting there going like mutton veal. And she's like, nope. Like that's what a woman. Yeah. And she's like going on little hikes. She's going little hikes being like, oh man, I sure am hungry. Man, can't wait to eat. It's like, dude, are you okay? But she survived 10 months in the end, right? Because it was July to May. Crazy. I framed this as a Christmas story. And I think it has that element to it. And the

word Christmas was said once, which I took as my green light. But it's it's really almost a full year. She was on that island. I can't believe Mendenhall showed up at the end. He wanted the copper. I really thought he would have bailed hard. He was probably like, we need copper. Oh, yeah. Those people are probably dead by now. I can just go get it. And I won't have to pay. Probably. Right. Yeah, no one's going to be traveling there in the winter. So yeah, you just wait for him to die. And then you there's no way you'd have to be super human. That girl was 17. There's no way she lasted 10 months. But she did. I hope everybody's Christmas and holidays. Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, anything you celebrate has a lot of delicious food.

And you're not eating bark and thinking about eating your relatives. That's not like your relatives. Yeah. At least you don't have to eat them. You can eat them recreationally, but we don't want it to be necessity based. No, no, no necessity this holiday season. No. Only joy. Just recreation. Mitchell, what do you think? I think I'm a little hungrier than I was before the story started. And I'm pretty hungrier. Yeah, I'm feeling like grateful to be warm and looking forward to eating a lot in a way that is good. Yeah, I'm glad you said grateful because I am also very grateful to everyone for especially those of you who led us into your homes on Christmas Day specifically. That's very, I don't know, that makes me warm and gooey. Yeah.

The best part of Hanukkah is you can listen to us like eight times. So that makes me gooey too. I think the last mine of Hanukkah is like the 26th. Yes, it is this year. Still. You can put an end to what is hopefully a really lovely and joyous Hanukkah by listening to us too. Either way, we're so stoked for all y'all and I'm stoked for used to and even for Batman. Even for Batman. Even for perhaps especially for Batman. The reason for the season. God bless us, everyone. Yeah, that's a good ending. I like that. All right, I'm good. I'm done. Good one, Taylor. Thank you. Ding dong. Ding dong. Hello. Thanks for listening. If you want more infamy, we've got plenty more episodes at bittersweetinthamy.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you

want to support the podcast, shoot us a few bucks via our coffee account at ko-fi.com forward slash bittersweetinthamy. But no pressure. Bittersweetinthamy is free, baby. You can always support us by liking, rating, subscribing, leaving a review, following us on Instagram at bittersweetinthamy. Or just pass the podcast along to a friend who you think would dig it. Stay sweet. For the Mimphemous, you heard earlier Josie and Mitchell Redden article published in Variety September 13th, 2022. Great American Family announces Candace Cameron Burra's first holiday movie for network by Emily Longaretta. They read the article of Very Hallmark Christmas from Bustle magazine written by Ivana Ritter, published December 23rd, 2021. Finally, they watched the

2006 Hallmark Christmas film The Christmas Card directed by Stephen Bridgewater. My primary source for this week's episode was Angelique So-Narrative, first reported by Ralph D. Williams in The Honorable Peter White, a biographical sketch of the Lake Superior Iron Country from 1907. I accessed it by Michigan Genealogy on the web. For additional historical information, I read An Interesting Pioneer of the Copper District by Graham Janig, April 14th, 2018 for The Mining Gazette. Timeline of Michigan Copper Mining Green History to 1850. Huanoa National Historical Park, U.S. and P.S. Conflicted over copper, how the mining industry developed around Lake Superior by Lorraine Guassano, June 5th, 2020 for Great Lakes Now. The page on copper mining

from Huanoa Geoheritage. Digging for Copper predates European settlers in the Huanoa by 7,000 years, July 23rd, 2013 in The Mining Gazette. Lake Superior Mine, Old Phoenix Fisher on Mindat.org, an outreach project of the Hudson Institute of Meteorology. The Wikipedia pages for Isle Royale, Manang Traditional Cultural Property, and Voyageur, the MNHS page on Historic Fort Snelling to Do with the Fur Trade. Isle Royale, Stump Village, Big Bugs, October 26th, 2022 in The Mining Journal. Information on the film abandoned. Angelique Isle came from Tania Tolaga for The Toronto Star. An Indigenous heroine gets her due 170 years later. That was published Sunday, August 20th, 2017. Information about the Anishinaabe came from the Canadian

Encyclopedia. The story of the Maji Manado was by Catherine Isle on Story Berries. And information on Isle Royale National Park came from Lease Visited U.S. National Parks in 2021 by Marni Hunter, August 19th, 2022 for Santa Travel. An overnight stay on Isle Royale, have a very charming travel blog called Our Wanderfilled Life, September 20th, 2019. Really talked up Isle Royale and made me want to go. That was by Grant. And the official website for Isle Royale by the U.S. National Park Service. Our interstitial music is by Mitchell Collins. The song you are currently listening to is T.C. by Brian Steele. Happy holidays, everybody. Stay warm. I would have eaten Batman, first thing.