Summary of Scott Weidensaul's The First Frontier

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 The men in the canoes were skilled, but they knew disaster was just a moment away. They were navigating among the islands of wôbanakik, a beautiful but dangerous edge of the world.

#2 The Wapánahki were not a unified people. The languages spoken by those living far away were similar but subtly different from those of Ktə̀hαnəto and his relatives. They knew that they inhabited the most beautiful part of the world, and they felt slightly superior to all other people.

#3 The people were able to hunt and gather wôbanakik, which provided them with food in the spring. The summers were also good, with little frosts that lasted only a short time.

#4 The canoes carrying Ktə̀hαnəto and his companions rounded the last of the small islands, facing the swells again. The strange vessel was clearly visible, sitting quietly in a natural harbor among several islands, its trees bare of skins, the figures of men silhouetted against the sky.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669367222

IRB Media

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Insights on Scott Weidensaul's The First Frontier

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The men in the canoes were skilled, but they knew disaster was just a moment away. They were navigating among the islands of wôbanakik, a beautiful but dangerous edge of the world.

#2

The Wapánahki were not a unified people. The languages spoken by those living far away were similar but subtly different from those of Ktə̀hαnəto and his relatives. They knew that they inhabited the most beautiful part of the world, and they felt slightly superior to all other people.

#3

The people were able to hunt and gather wôbanakik, which provided them with food in the spring. The summers were also good, with little frosts that lasted only a short time.

#4

The canoes carrying Ktə̀hαnəto and his companions rounded the last of the small islands, facing the swells again. The strange vessel was clearly visible, sitting quietly in a natural harbor among several islands, its trees bare of skins, the figures of men silhouetted against the sky.

#5

By the beginning of the seventeenth century, European explorers such as Samuel de Champlain and George Waymouth were just beginning to map the crenellated shoreline of what is now Maine. Yet Norse vessels had reached the region roughly six hundred years earlier, and Native inhabitants of the Northeast had been in contact with Old World fishermen and whalers for hundreds of years.

#6

In 1602, English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold and about thirty men sailed down the southern New England coast to Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard, looking for a place to establish a trading post. They found the colony abandoned, with no clues as to their fate except for the word Croatoan carved on a post.

#7

Waymouth and his crew landed in what is now known as the Georges Islands, near the mouth of Muscongus Bay. They spent a week and a half digging wells, cutting new yards for the ship, and laying in firewood. They built a long, narrow sailing boat called a pinnace, which they used to explore the surrounding coast.

#8

The Wapánahkis were friendly towards the Englishmen, and they liked raisins and candy. They showed a particular fondness for the boiled dried peas and weevilly ship biscuit that formed a staple of naval cuisine.

#9

The Wapánahkis were very friendly and eager to trade, but they were very suspicious of the Englishmen’s motives. They insisted that the English go to their King, who lived along the coast to the northeast somewhere.

#10

The Wapánahki and their neighbors to the north, along the Maritime coast, knew that such visitors would be short, ugly men. They knew that their wigwaol, when approached from downwind, would be rank with their unwashed stink.

#11

The Wapánahki knew that they would have goods to trade with the Englishmen. They had information that was worth more than beaver pelts or smooth tobacco. They had encountered a race of quick-witted people, and the Englishmen immediately understood that the intelligence and knowledge of a few Salvages would be priceless to