Green Center Fiction

Birds and rain filled the sky. It was normal for the birds to hide when it rained, but not on this day. They were leaving, just as I was. The food was gone and I had to find more. I was lucky. I had no family and no real duty to the village where I lived. The others had families, reasons to stay. I followed the birds.

By the first day the rain had stopped. The birds were still going west, as was I. I had snared a small rabbit in the night and with the rainless morning I was able to cook it over a fire. I filled my stomach with rabbit and rainwater. A new day had begun.

The famine had started three months before. The elders said the land was cursed. The crops failed because the village had fallen out of favor with the Great Spirit. The moose and grouse had gone away, sensing the curse upon the land. The villagers had lived as if food and plenty was not a blessing but instead an expectation. It was taken for granted that moose meat would fill tables and corn would bolster stews. No longer did the villagers tell the great stories of the bear, the lynx, and divine creation. The children grew up never knowing how to dance and chant in thanks for the many blessings placed upon the village.

The first signs of trouble came before the spring. No moose had been seen since the first winter’s snow. Many of the villagers had saved salted meat, but this soon ran out. The village hunters had managed to provide enough grouse until the spring, but once the snow had melted and the ground had thawed these birds were gone as well. One night, as the hunters sat around a fire in on the outskirts of the village, an elder named Wakiza approached and told them of his vision. Wakiza said he had seen the grouse and moose following a giant cat towards the Great Spirit. He said the Spirit was calling them away from the village and they were never to return. A hunter named Hassun called the old man a fool. Hassun said Wakiza’s superstition was scaring the villagers and he needed to find a way to provide the village with food rather than spouting fables and nonsense.

By mid-summer it was obvious that the crops had failed. A drought had dried up the rivers and the lake had shrunk to half its size. What few fish that remained were soon eaten. It was obvious that the village would be next to disappear. Forget surviving the winter, my people would not make it through autumn’s first frost.

One late summer night, the elders called a village meeting. Wakiza spoke first and told the other villagers that the Great Spirit had abandoned the land. He said that by not acknowledging the presence of this power the villagers had allowed its protection to vanish. Again, the hunter named Hassun told the elders that their primitive beliefs could not help the village. Hassun said that the elders were blaming the village’s suffering on the people themselves. Another hunter named Tate spoke up and said that the elders did not understand how difficult it was to farm and hunt. Tate said all the elders did was chant and dance and asked what good had this done. Finally, the village Chieftain spoke up. He said the famine could not be the fault of the villagers. The Chieftain banished the elders for inciting fear and promoting superstition. The next day, the elders were gone.

That afternoon, I was in the forest searching for berries, roots, anything to eat. A small child named Wapi approached and told me a story. Wapi had been woken up by a voice during the night. He thought he heard his sister calling him outside to play. She had died the week before. Once the boy was outside he noticed Wakiza and the elders following a giant cat out of the village, under the midnight moon. I told the child to not repeat this story. The hunters held great influence over the Chieftain and they would surely banish anyone who spread such fantastic stories.

Two weeks later, the rain started. It rained until what little crops were growing washed away. It rained and filled the river, but the fish did not return. The lake filled with the rain but not so much as a beaver was seen upon its shores. Children began to die in greater numbers. Husbands were leaving their families in search of food. Women prayed and cried in the streets. Still the rain continued. The river flooded the fields. The lake bore only mosquitoes. Our village was truly cursed.

The hunters demanded patience. Their long journeys bore no food, but still they explored the forest surrounding the village. Two weeks after the rain began the hunters returned and one man was missing. Hassun told his wife he had drowned in the river. That night all of the hunter’s families enjoyed a little bit of stew with meat. I was a farmer with no family. The hunters would not hesitate to make me their next meal. I woke up the next morning and noticed the birds flying west. I followed the birds out of the village.


I was only one day out of the village when I snared that rabbit. Why had the hunters not found any meat? Had they not journeyed far enough? Had their hunger blinded them to an obvious catch? After my morning meal of rabbit I kept walking, following the birds. Soon I found wild berries and mushrooms to eat. I found a small pond filled with perch, jumping at dragonflies and mosquitoes. Within moments I had caught three fish with my bare hands. After lunch, the rain cleared and with the sunlight came the sounds of partridge. I made a sling from my shirt and hunted grouse until dusk. Dinner that evening was roasted bird with fish and mushroom stew. I drank from a spring and snacked on berries under the moonlight. I was not two days out of the village. I wondered if I should go home and tell the villagers of this place. Then I heard the voice. It sounded like my mother, but younger than I remember her sounding. Her voice was lilting like a bedtime melody.

I followed the voice past the pond and into the forest. After following for several moments I came upon a clearing illuminated by the moon. In the middle sat a giant lynx. She was the size of a moose. I should have been terrified, but I remembered the story Wapi had told me. The cat turned and headed west, into the forest. I followed her all night. I followed her through the sunrise and into the dawn of morning. I followed her into the heat of noon, but I was neither hot nor hungry. Just before sunset we came to a valley and on the other side lay the most beautiful range of mountains I have ever seen.

Just as I was gazing into the valley the cat turned around to face me. As her eyes met mine she disappeared, evaporating slowly like a puddle in the summer sun. I was alone but not afraid. I walked into the valley and soon found berries and water. That evening I feasted on plump rabbit stew. I sensed this valley was a place for me to wait.

I lived in this valley for three days. The first day I had a breakfast of berries and wild rice. Lunch was brook trout and mushrooms. I made a spear from stones and a pine branch and for dinner I was able to kill a white-tail deer. This kill was too much for me to eat, but I hoped whoever I was waiting for would come along to help me eat it. For the next two days I ate and hunted, each time thanking the Great Spirit for the bounty of the valley, but I was missing my home and my people. Why should I live in a land of plenty while women and children were starving?

The third night in the valley I saw a glorious sunset. My stomach was full of rice with venison gravy. After dinner I had sassafras tea sweetened with berry juice. I tried to sleep, it had been so long it seemed. The voices and darkness of sleep had just begun to swirl in my head when I awoke to a clap of thunder. I had not anticipated rain and had built no shelter. Luckily, the storm was not close. It was in the mountains, but the thunder echoed through the valley, making the storm seem right upon me.

I heard movement in the brush behind me. The giant cat had returned. She came up beside me and right away I understood that she wanted me to follow her. It was dawn by the time we reached the base of the mountains. The cat rested and I offered her some deer meat I had carried for the trip, but she refused. Once again she vanished into the air, an apparition.

I understood that I must climb the mountain on my own. I had quick lunch of deer and wild raspberries that I found along a mountain stream. I filled my water pouch and began my ascension. I reached the middle of my climb by sunset. I was contemplating setting up camp, but something seemed to be pulling me towards the top of this mountain. The moon and stars were my only companions as I reached the summit. There was no view except the heavens and a dark expanse below that I understood to be the valley. I wasn’t cold, but the air was thinner. It seemed like years since I had seen the village, it had been four days.

Just as I expected the cat appeared again. She sat and waited for me to approach her. I stroked her chin and she returned a deep purr in response. She sat up and headed away from me. I followed her down a path the opposite to where I had reached the summit. After walking for what seemed like only a few moments we came to the mouth of a cave. The cat sat at the entrance and I knew I was to enter alone. It was so dark but I went forward. All I could hear was my breath and heart. Darkness and breath and steadily cooling air, this was how my journey was to end?

I couldn’t see the cave’s mouth anymore and I knew the cat would not come in after me. I didn’t even know which way I was going. It didn’t matter. Fate had brought me this far. It was then that I saw a dim light ahead. The further I walked the brighter it became. It was not the flickering light of a fire, but the steady glow of the sky, as if the sun itself was here in this mountain cave. It was then that I realized that the cave’s trail had brought me outside the mountain to a terrace filled with trees and shallow grass. The sun was coming up and it was there that I heard the voice of the Great Spirit. The air was so still, neither a bird nor leaf stirred. It was there in the otherworldly-still of that morning light that the Great Spirit spoke to me and only me. The voice was neither inside me nor outside. It surrounded everything and vibrated through the very ground, through the trees and its breath flowed with the wind.

“Ishago, you are a humble yet strong and worthy man. You have come so far in so short a time. You have understood that fate brought you to this place. You trusted in me as I have in you.

Long ago, before your father’s fathers lived, I blessed your people with grace, wisdom, and plenty. All I asked for in return was acknowledgement. Instead your people have forgotten this blessing. The hunters in your village began to think that their prey was a result of their skill. They forgot that I provide the animals, the fish, the fruits of the land. Their only duty was to harvest what they needed and to give thanks through dance and song. Instead they mocked those who attempted to fulfill this small price.

I have not cursed your village. Your people have. But you are here. You understand the importance of fate and reverence to the power of creation. I cannot bring back the moose and grouse. I cannot heal the damaged land. The famine is the result of man, not me. By forgetting about me your people have turned their back on the land that feeds them. As I do not exist, neither does my creation.

Go find your friend the cat. She will show you the way home. Your people need you.”

Though it seemed the Great Spirit only spoke for a few moments it was sunset by the time the voice became silent. From out of the mouth of the cave came the cat and she was followed by my village elders. They began to dance and sing. Their song told of the Great Spirit and the creation of the universe. The song told of the darkness and how the Great Spirit’s light would always shine through. They sang for the trees and roots. They sang for the moose and grouse. They sang for the wind and rain. They sang for the unity of creation. And just as they had appeared, they vanished, their song resonating through the mountain peaks and valley below.

The cat brought me down the mountain to a lake and the mouth of a river. The cat had brought me to a large grove of birch trees and I began to collect their bark for tea and fire. Further back from the river stood tall-pine, untouched by any men. It was there on the shore of that rushing river that the Great Spirit seemed to speak to me again, not with words, but with visions. I saw a round-bottomed raft made of bark with a man at each end. I was very tired and I wasn’t sure what to make of this vision.

After a meal of wild rice and mushrooms I began to build the raft I had envisioned. It was as if my hands didn’t belong to me. It was as if the Great Spirit itself was tying the bark together with roots and sealing the raft with pine resin. The shape in my head began to take form. The raft was pointed at both ends and round on the bottom. It took me two days to build the boat and another half-day to fashion a log into the shape of an oar.

I rested on the fourth day and loaded the raft with food for my journey home. The night before I left I dreamt of a beautiful woman. Her shadow darkened my doorway on a sunny day. I offered her tea and tobacco. Her eyes were the same as the cat that had brought me so far from home. I loved her in an instant and in an instant she was gone. I was awake. A mosquito had broken the dream’s spell by piercing my cheek. Couldn’t the Great Spirit have rested on the day that mosquitoes were created?




The blood-sucker on my cheek wasn’t the only reminder that I was awake. The gnawing hunger in my stomach reminded me of where I was. I was home, in the village. I was in my tiny shack, in my bed. I had never left home. The food, the giant lynx, the Great Spirit, even the boat, it had all been a dream. I was so hungry I could barely stand, but I managed to get out of bed. It was then that I realized that my dream was in fact a vision. That morning I boiled the last of my moccasins for breakfast and headed over to the birch grove. I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon in great hunger, but I was able to muster the strength to gather large pieces of bark. I yanked saplings from the ground and collected their roots.

All of this activity had made me weak so I built a small fire and boiled some water and bark for soup. As I sat among the birch, eating my small lunch, Wapi and his father, Elan, approached. They were also looking for bark to boil. Wapi was emaciated, but somehow able to walk. Elan was a fellow farmer. We had known each other our entire lives.

“Hey there, Igasho. Are you going to eat all that bark? How about sharing?” Elan was gazing hungrily at my pile of bark as he spoke.
“Hey yourself, Elan. Take all the bark you want, but leave me the big pieces. I’m building a boat.”

Elan looked puzzled, but Wapi seemed to understand right away. The child started gathering roots as I began to arrange the larger pieces. After Elan and Wapi ate their bark they asked me how they could help. I showed them how to arrange and shape the bark, using the memories of my dream to guide our work. By sundown we had assembled many pieces of bark and a flat version of our boat was beginning to take shape. As Elan prepared a dinner of bark soup, Wapi helped me hide the boat under some leaves so any unwelcome visitors would not disturb it. We all decided to camp in the birch grove that night and continue our work in the morning.

By the next afternoon our patching and sewing was complete and we were ready to seal and shape the boat with sap. Wapi and I gathered sap as Elan prepared a lunch of bark soup and dried willows to smoke. The soup was keeping us alive, but the willows were helping our stomachs forget how empty they were. By the time the sun dropped behind the forest, our boat was complete and we were all so tired that we couldn’t speak. Wapi was so much weaker than when he and his father came upon me. Elan and I decided that we should make sure our boat floats and leave under the moonlight. If we did not find food soon, the boy would not live past morning.

Elan made a final meal of bark soup and smoked some more willow. We needed paddles. As Elan cooked I went into the village and stole two spears from a hunter’s shack. After dinner Elan and I tied several large pieces of sealed bark to the spears. These would have to do. We loaded Wapi into our boat and headed west. We paddled until dawn and through the next day. We lived on what was left of our strength. The Great Spirit was truly guiding us and keeping us alive as we had no food to explain for our strength. We paddled for another day. We realized that Wapi was nearly dead. The current was taking us and we decided to rest and let our boat take us where it may.

We all three fell into a deep sleep. I dreamt again of the woman. She was smiling and offering me her hand. When I awoke I knew I was no longer in a dream. The pain in my stomach let me know this. Elan was already awake and holding Wapi in his arms. Wapi had not lived through the night. We pulled the boat ashore and as Elan performed the ceremonial rights of our tribe, I dug a shallow grave with my hands and a flat rock. Elan never cried, but was silent the rest of the day. Once again we fell asleep in the boat, under the stars, our hunger bringing us closer to where Wapi had gone.

“Hey Igasho, where are we, how long have we been drifting?” Elan was awake.

“I’ve never been this far down the river before Elan”, I said. “I hope there’s food around here somewhere or this boat will be our grave.” I glanced apologetically at Elan, realizing what I had just said, but his eyes were peering into the distance.

“Smoke”, said Elan.

He was right. There was smoke rising beyond a bend in the river. We paddled harder. I was so weak, but the thought of what that smoke meant seemed to numb the hunger pains and make my heart beat faster.

Around the bend was a village. The women were gathered around the riverside with their babies. They were washing clothes and their children. I don’t know how far we had traveled in the night, but the current must have been stronger than Elan and I had noticed. I had walked down the river’s shore many times in my life and had never noticed any sign of another village being near. As we pulled our boat up on the shore one of the women ran to the village and returned with several men.

As Elan and I pulled on to the shore and climbed from the boat, I felt myself begin to die. I collapsed right there on the bank of the river. When I awoke I was under a tree and a beautiful woman was offering me sassafras tea with honey. It was the woman in my dream.

“Am I dreaming again or am I dead?” I asked.

“You should be dead” answered the woman. “Both you and Elan should be dancing with the Great Spirit. Now, drink this tea and we’ll try to get some food into you.”

“You know of the Great Spirit?” I asked, gazing into her eyes.

“Of course I do”, she answered. “Just as I know of the wind, rain, sun and snow.”

“What is your name?”, I asked.

“I am Meda. The Chieftain is my father.”

“Hello Meda, I am Igasho.”

“I know”, she said. “I heard your name in my dreams.”

That night a feast was held in our honor. Elan and I told the village Chieftain, a man named Maska, of the famine in our land. We told him of our hardship and of Wapi’s death. The Chieftain listened to our words and then he spoke.

“Ishago and Elan, what you have told me about your village and your people is a story shrouded in a great darkness. This is the kind of darkness that invades a man’s soul on that loneliest of nights, when his mind betrays him and it seems as if the sun shall never shine again. My daughter has seen this darkness as well. She has told me of her dream in which she is crawling through a tunnel, searching for the Great Spirit, only to find a deep cavern where breath and sound can never escape.

The death of a child is the death of a village. If we cannot keep our children alive then what point is there for us to live? Elan, you have lost two children to hunger, but you have saved yourself. For some reason you and Ishago are here. The Great Spirit has brought you to our shore and by doing so has saved your lives. Honor him tonight as we dance and sing.

When Meda’s mother died I felt as if the Creator had cursed me, but I learned to understand that life is a gift that we must enjoy and not expect. Your village has come to expect food and plenty and by doing so it has lost its soul.

Ishago and Elan, you have begun the process of restoring the soul of your village. Instead of going insane with hunger you have worked to create something that can help. This boat you have built, it is like nothing I have ever seen. My village is strong and healthy, but soon we will outgrow ourselves. We need new hunting grounds, new rivers to fish, or we will find our soul lost, just as your village has.

We will give you as much food as you can pack in to that boat, but in return you must do something for us. You must tell your people of your journey, and you must build more boats. We will trade you all of the moose and corn you like for these boats. Our villages will finally be connected through the river.

Rest tonight. In the morning, you shall return home and tell your people what you have seen and how you can help them. I ask the Great Spirit for mercy and that there is someone left to hear your tale.”

Elan and I had loaded the boat with food and paddled home. We paddled for two days and reached the village on the morning of the third. We beached the craft before reaching the village, not knowing what we would find. Everything was so quiet. We smelled smoke from a fire and followed the scent. A young woman named Aponi was boiling water for her crying child to drink. As I approached she recognized me, she knew the stride of a man not dying of hunger.

“Ishago”, Aponi cried. “Where have you been?” Instead of saying anything I reached into my pouch and pulled out the dried meat I had brought with me. Her eyes widened and she instinctively held her hands out. Elan had brought along some corn meal and began to prepare some mash for the crying baby.

The village smelled of death. No children were playing outside. No women were washing their babies in the river. According to Aponi, the hunters had left a week before, never to be seen again. The Chieftain had disappeared in the night, leaving his family behind. This was a village that was waiting to die.

Elan and I brought our boat to the shores of the village and unloaded the food. Aponi went to each of the households and told people that there would be food to eat today, that Elan and I had enough to feed everyone. This was true, of the nearly 500 people who once lived in this village barely 100 were left. Everyone else had either died or disappeared.

With the help of Aponi, Elan and I prepared a great feast. We ate until sunset and then I spoke to the villagers. I told of my vision, of our boat and our journey down the river. We told them of Maska’s village, the food, and how Maska wanted more boats from us. The remaining men quickly decided that they would help Elan and I build more boats, that our village would fulfill Maska’s offer.

The next day the building of the boats began. Once the first few were built my guidance was no longer needed. Within three days the men had built twenty boats. But a strange thing was occurring. As the days went by, as we continued to build we began to notice changes. The clouds that had so long obscured the sun began to disappear. The grasses in the fields surrounding the village began to change back to green. The birds began to return.

Once the men had built twenty boats, Elan and I tethered them together and set out for Maska’s village. He was elated to see so many boats and he let us keep two in order to fill them with food and return home. Within two moons our village had traded enough boats with Maska that we were able to store food for the coming winter. But this was not the only way we fed ourselves. Our journeys down the river had helped us find new hunting grounds, new berry patches, and new ponds and lakes to fish from.

As for me, I discovered a friendship between myself and Maska’s daughter, Meda. This friendship slowly became one of love, just after the next year’s harvest we married. I had assumed the position of Chieftain in my village. Meda was my wife, and she would be the mother of my children. My village was saved through Meda’s vision. My village was saved through Elan’s strength and patience.

Now, my people perform the dances and sing the songs, but we have a new dance, a new song. We have a dance and song that tells the tale of a great cat and a village haunted by death. The dance tells of a great journey that never was and a vision that brought back the sun and birds. The dance and song tells the tale of how our people began to build and trade boats for food and how we saved ourselves by acknowledging the guidance of the Great Spirit. The song and dance is called Canoe, and that is what we call this boat. “Canoe”, we all sing. We sing in thanks and in praise.



© 2008 Craig Skinner