Paul G

Posted by KevinRoach

The northern lights brightened the sky in streaks and sheets of color. Directly overhead the streamers of light formed straight lines reaching to infinity, converging overhead like teepee poles. The display of light dwindled off into the distance until passing over the northern horizon. Below, the water reflected the sky in a perfect mirror. Not a ripple stirred the clear surface. The canoe seemed suspended between two dimensions. Stars twinkled in both.

Every sound seemed amplified in the quiet night. He heard the rustlings of deer and raccoon in the dry leaves half a mile away. The slap of a beaver's tail sounded like a gunshot in the stillness. A loon called in the distance, its cry echoing from the trees, answering its own plaintive song.

This was his favorite time of year when the walleyes come into the shallows to spawn in the rocky shoreline. The ice only recently melted and the water was cold and clear. Circling the islands, the man occasionally stabbed his spear into the darkness and lifted a wiggling fish into the boat.

For centuries his people fished this way. Aluminum boats and battery powered headlamps replaced birchbark canoes and torches, but the lake was the same and the fishermen still stopped to gaze in wonder at the northern lights. As the aurora brightened he set down the spear, turned off his headlamp, and drifted quietly toward the center of the lake.

The elders told him this was a path to the spirit world. Jiibayaag Niimi'idiwag, (ghosts dancing with each other) Spirits of his relatives who had passed on, dancing along the trail in the sky. His mother and father, members of the mide'wewin, traveled that road. His tiny brother, dead for many years, killed by the mumps, had also taken that path. One day he would follow that trail into the sky himself.

The white men claimed the lights in the sky were caused by particles from the sun, interacting with molecules in the upper atmosphere. Perhaps it was true. It would be a wondrous thing if pieces of the sun formed this path for the spirits. It was another gift from the creator whichever way one chose to look at it.

Untying a worn leather pouch from his belt he removed some tobacco and sprinkled it on the water.

"Miigwech Gichi Manitoo miishiyaan mino bimadiziwiin." Thank You Creator for giving me this good life.

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