Social Studies by the Exotic Chicken

Parks Canada: The Mik’maq people are an indigenous tribe who have inhabited PEI and the Atlantic Region for thousands of years.

This is a Mik’maq legend as told by Mik’maq people around a campfire at the Cavendish Campground, Prince Edward Island:

A young boy has just come back from a wonderful adventure.   

Once upon a time there was great tribe.  That tribe had a wonderful gift; the biggest blueberry patch filled with the juiciest blueberries.  The tribe also had a powerful chief.  Upon returning from a long day of hunting, the chief spotted a black bear in the tribe’s blueberry patch.  “What am I going to do?” the chief questioned.

The chief called a tribal council.  He explained the problem to the community.

A young boy volunteered to go and scare the bear away.  Before leaving, he confessed to his grandmother that he did not know how he would be able to keep his promise and chase the bear away.  His grandmother gave him a very special gift.  It was an axe.

“But Grandmother,” the boy said,”I cannot harm the bear with this axe.”

“Child, do not worry, this is not an ordinary axe.  It is a thundering axe.  When you bang it on the ground, it calls forth the footprints of creator.”

So the boy went to the blueberry patch and called to the bear.  “Hello bear.”  This startled the bear who was not used to speaking with humans.  The bear hid behind a tree.

“Isn’t this the best berry patch you have ever seen?” the bear asked.

“It is,” said the boy, “but you must leave the patch because our tribe needs the berries.”

The bear thought this was very strange.  He refused to leave.  He said to the boy, “Let’s have a contest.  Whoever gets scared will have to leave the blueberry patch for good.”

OK said the boy, “To make it fair, you go first.”   

The bear thought this would be an easy contest.  

The boy thought that bear would roar very loudly indeed, so he stuffed his ears with moss.

The bear roared, and it was very loud, but it was not too loud for the boy.

The boy wanted to be as scary as possible.   He rubbed red clay on one side of his face and black ashes on the other side of his face and hid behind a bush.  He began to pound the axe on the ground.  It worked!  Thundering noises came from the axe and from the ground.  One last time, the boy pounded the axe on the ground and jumped from behind the bush.  The bear ran away from the thundering axe and the little boy with the black and red face.

This is why bears are scared of loud noises.  When you are in the woods or picking berries you should make noise to scare away bears.

Or so the story goes….