Raven Opens the Clamshell

After the great water covered everything and then slowly pulled back, the world was clean and new and very quiet. Raven walked along the beach of a place that would one day be called Haida Gwaii, and the beach was immaculate. The sand was as white as clouds. The sea was calm.

A great clamshell lay on the sand, slightly open. From inside it came tiny sounds — murmuring, whispering, something stirring. Raven bent his great black head and peered inside. In the darkness of the shell, small frightened figures pressed themselves against the curved walls. They had never seen light before, and it terrified them.

Raven called to them in a voice like water over stones, and slowly, slowly, the first people crept toward the opening and peeked out at the bright new world. When they saw the world — the white beach, the green forests beyond, the silver water, the vast sky — some went back inside in terror. But others stepped out onto the sand.

Their feet felt the warmth. They looked up and felt the sun on their faces. Raven watched them discover the world, and he felt something he did not have a name for — it was something like pride, but richer, and stranger.

He taught them the names of things. He showed them where the salmon ran and where the cedar grew and how to read the tides. He gave them fire. He gave them the stories. And then he left, as Raven always does, because there were other beaches and other clamshells, and the world was still being made.