A long time ago Raven used to live on top of a mountain above Ohagmiut. Down below between two round cheek-like rocks he used to keep his kayak. In the river he even made a rock fence for fishing for his salmon. One day though he moved down to Nelson Island. While he was there he visited a man's house where there were many humans gathered together. But since he was only a bird in those days he didn't receive the attention he thought he should have. So he thought he should take on the form of a human. But how could he do this, he wondered?

It so happened that at this man's house he noticed there was a young married woman who was childless. So he thought about her and decided on a plan. When she went to the water bucket to get a drink with her cup, Raven made himself as small as a speck of dust and landed on the surface of the water where she scooped him up and drank him down into her stomach.

While Raven was in her stomach she became pregnant, and after her time gave birth to a healthy baby boy. The boy grew up to be a man and the man became a good hunter and claimed the respect of the people of the land. Thus had Raven achieved his goal.

But Raven wanted to do more. Since there was no sun or moon in those days, it was very dark and hard for people and animals to see what they were doing. So Raven decided to try to find daylight and so make it easier to see. Since it was winter and there was much snow on the ground he put on a pair of snowshoes before he went out in search of the daylight. He slogged along searching and searching but couldn't find daylight on the Earth, so he took off into the heavens thinking he might find it up there. As he slogged along in the sky with his snow-covered snowshoes he left some of the snow on the trail he had travelled. For that reason when you look up at the heavens at night they seem to have a misty covering of snow on them. This is the snowshoe trail that Raven made in his search for the daylight. Today we call it the Milky Way.

By: Alexander Isaac