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Miminegash Micmac Legend  
Folklore, Prince Edward Island
By: Sterling Ramsay

Many long years ago there lived an old, old Indian in the district of Miminegash. He was so very old that none of the warriors could remember him as anything other than old. Even the bears of the forest and the lobsters, which crawled, addressed him as 'Father'. To him the great Manitou had given the secret of the winds, and the lightning, the rain and the trees. Night after night he would wander around when all the others were asleep, and speak with the spirit of the stars. The birds came , and even the timid wood mouse followed him serenely happy in his company. He was old, so very, very old.

One day the Spirit of the sea called to him. What the Spirit told him no one knows. But as the Indians gathered together on the shore that evening they saw the Old Father in his canoe. Silently he sat in the bow, looking intently out beyond the horizon. Then, the boat began to move. Some unseen force seemed to draw the frail little craft out, out into the Strait. Farther and farther like a vast curtain. The boat passed through it and the old Indian was gone.

The Indians mourned. They felt lost without their gentle old Father. For weeks they grieved. For weeks they wandered along the shore looking always out, out over the Strait. Their hunting was neglected. Their wigwam fires died down unnoticed. Still they haunted the shoreline looking in vain for a frail canoe to come in over the sea.

Finally, one night, as the stars twinkled faintly in the sky, a vast panorama of moving lights appeared. These shifting lights were not new, but this time there was something unusual about them. The Indians had seen them many times before, so now they scarcely noticed them. Suddenly, a weeping brave exclaimed: "Look! Look!"

There, amid the shifting lights, stood the old Indian, with one arm stretched protectingly over them. Around him were grouped his friends of the forest and the field. And as they stood in awe and fear, the old Indian spoke to them.

"My Children", he said, I have dwelt with you ever since your forefathers left the plains of Asia and wandered across this trackless land of the setting sun. Now, that is all over. Another race will sweep into this land and take possession of the country. But you will not be left alone. For every year I will walk amid the changing lights of the Northern sky." The lights flashed, grew dimmer, and faded away. The Indians returned to their wigwams satisfied. The Indians understood.