Reading Notes: Alaskan Legends Part B

The Ghost Land - when the chief's son's wife died, he was too sad to sleep. One morning he got dressed and walked all day/night, he was walking the Death Trail. He called to people on the other side of the lake to come get him, but they couldn't hear him. A man was paddling in a canoe. The people finally heard shouting and said that someone was coming up from Dreamland and to bring him over. The chief's son saw his wife and he was happy. She told him he couldn't stay long, and took him back in the Ghost Canoe. They landed at Ghost's Rock, at the end of the Death Trail. They walked back home, and he went inside and told his father that he brought his wife home. He told him to bring her inside, but no one else could see her. She wrapped a cloak around her, and ate, but all they could see was the cloak and the spoon. After, the chief's son died, and they both went back to Ghost Land.

(Photo from Pinterest)

The Boy in the Moon - a lazy boy in a village fell in love with a girl. He sees her climbing a ladder to the sky with a plate of meat and berries. She grabbed hold of a line hanging down as she climbed. Her brothers scolded the boy, and he rushed to get dressed and ran outside, climbing the ladder to get to her. She was floating away, and he did too. The girl became the sun and the boy the moon. 

"When the sun sinks in the west, the moon rises in the east, but always too late. The moon has no food, and sometimes almost fades away. Then the sun reaches out the dish of meat and berries and the moon becomes fat again." (Explains the phases of the moon).



Myths and Legends of Alaska, edited by Katharine Berry Judson. Web Source.