Creekstone Press Publications
Excerpts from Returning the Feathers: Five Gitxsan Stories
With Young Egret, the final story in the collection, we see how legends are born.
One day, late in autumn, Jane Smith was out at her smokehouse in Anlo. There she saw an unusual bird flying by the distant trees. When she returned after a light snowfall, she found the body of the bird, an egret, beside her smokehouse. She wrote Young Egret as a tribute to the visitor – a tribute that becomes a luminous journey of transformation.
“We will help you, Young Egret,” promised the Dreamer.
The dreamer had dreamed of Young Egret’s coming and now his dreams were of Young Egret’s leaving. Young Egret listened as the Dreamer spoke of the ways of the Gitxsan. They, too, had journeyed to distant lands and the sprit, as is the way of the sprit, longs to return home.