Mittlenach Island

Told by Rose Mitchell

The people living at the head of Toba Inlet heard that the Transformer was coming o they packed their belongings. Crow, the leader of the people, told hem o gather lots of huckleberries, cranberries, wild crabapples, salal berries and wild blackberries. Because he was in such a hurry, Crow wove snakes together as berry baskets.

 

Crow told one person to go down to the beach and dig all the different pes of shellfish. He told another person to catch all the different kinds of fish . Another person collected some water from the Toba River. Then everything was loaded into Crow's canoe and he and the other people all got in. They headed out Toba Inlet, but when they reached Snout Point the Transformer pushed several of them out of the canoe there and changed them into rocks. You can still see these rocks at Snout Point today.

 

Out past Hernando Island, the Transformer changed Crow's canoe into rock. This became the island known as Metl nech (Mittlenach) as it is always 'calm at one end.' And because of the Transformer, there are many ducks around Mittlenach today - they lay their eggs on the island.

 

It al so because of the Transformer that there are so many different kinds of berries on Mittlenach today; these are the berries, some of them from the mountains, that Crow had in his basket woven from snakes. And these snakes can still be found living on Mittlenach. The fresh water from Toba River that the people brought with them is still there, right on top of Mittlenach Island.