Canada’s First Nations are rich with creation legends passed down through the generations. From the Haida of the West Coast to the Mi’kmaq of the East, creation stories from a wide array of First Nations cultures are collected in this volume. Here are just a few:

• Mi’kmaq—The Sun created a man and a woman for each part of the earth, but when people began to kill one another, the Sun wept until the entire world was flooded. Everyone drowned except an old man and woman, who were good, and they repopulated the earth.
• Blackfoot—Water once covered the world, and Napi, the Creator, was curious to know what lay beneath the waves, so he sent Muskrat to investigate. Muskrat dove deep underwater, returning with a ball of mud that Napi transformed into the earth and all living things on it.
• Huron—Human-like beings once lived in longhouses in the sky around a beautiful celestial tree. One day a man uprooted the tree, and when his wife looked into the hole she fell to the world below. A Canada goose rescued the woman and put  her on the back of a giant turtle, which became the earth we know today.
• Algonquin—In the very beginning of time there were two brothers, Gluskap and Malsum. Gluskap created humans, and the plants and animals they needed to survive. Jealous of his brother, Malsum tried to kill Gluskap, but Gluskap used his own magic to be reborn. He then struck down his evil brother into the earth, and Malsum was reborn as a wolf.
• Haida—The trickster Raven opened a giant clamshell he found washed upon the beach, and when he opened it, out popped tiny human beings.
• Siksika—Old Man came from the south and made the world as he walked along. One day he made a woman and a man out of clay, and Old Man taught them how to survive in the world he created.