1913] Chipewyan Stories. 43 



CHIPEWYAN STORIES. 

 By the Right Rev. Bishop Lofthouse. 



CHAPTER I. 



The Animal Age. 



At the beginniag there were no people, only aaimals; still they 

 resembled human beings, and they could speak: when the animals could 

 speak it was summer, and when they lost the power of speaking winter 

 followed. 



A squirrel came to them and foretold the coming of winter, and they 

 all began to cry at the news. All the animals then ascended into the 

 sky, to meet some person they saw there: this person told them to return 

 to the earth, and said, "My son is on the earth to watch the deer crossing 

 the River". The man who watched the River told a mouse that when 

 he saw the deer crossing the River, he would come out in a canoe to kill some 

 of them. The deer were made acquainted with this man's evil intention 

 against them; they therefore said to the mouse, "When you see the man 

 coming in his canoe, you swim out to him and cut his paddle in the 

 middle so that he will upset before he gets to us, and be drowned". 



The mouse cut his paddle and the canoe consequently upset, but 

 the man got safely to shore. In this man's canoe a bag was found by 

 the deer which contained Summer. After this they followed the man to 

 some place where they saw his Father in the sky. 



When they came to their destination the bag was opened: all kinds 

 of Fish were found in it. A Jackfish was the first to come out of the bag: 

 he was followed by the rest of the Fish and the animals in search of the 

 earth. 



The place they came through in the heavens, after their exit, ap- 

 peared as if closed. When all these fish and animals were following 

 the Jackfish looking for the earth, a second partition of the bag burst 

 and let out Summer or heat. The arrival of the Summer melted the 

 snow, and then all the earth was covered with water, except one place, 

 where they saw a man whom they requested to dry up the water. Upon 

 this he drank it all up. 



