Origin Stories

Inuvialuit oral histories include several versions of a story of how the world was re-born after a flood engulfed the land. The central figures in some of these stories are a man and his wife, their son, who is sometimes spoken of as the spirit of a raven, and an orphan girl who survived the flood by building a raft. The flood waters drained away when the son harpooned the top of a pingo.

Drawing by Mona Ohovehuk. Photo credit: “Elik and other stories of the Mackenzie Eskimos” by Herbert Schwarz. McLelland and Stuart, 1970, p.10.