Drew crosses the country to uncover some memorable Indigenous tales. The stunning Badlands Hoodoos were considered sacred by the Blackfoot, Blood and Cree peoples. Hoodoos are created over time by erosion of the softer sandstone below harder capstones. Indigenous people believed hoodoos were giants of the past standing guard over a graveyard.

On the Kettle Point shore of Lake Huron, scattered giant spherical rocks are believed to be eggs dropped by the thunderbirds that surf the edge of lake storms. Carole Pelletier, Kettle Point elder, shows Drew the traditional medicines she has gathered locally. Legend says that every spring the thunderbirds awaken the medicines with their rumblings and lightning.

At Lake Nipissing Perry McLeod, Nipissing First Nations storyteller, recites stories at his fireside such as ‘The Serpent of the Manitous’; a powerful energy force still inhabits the islands in the lake. In Lake Superior (Gichigami) near Thunder Bay lies Nana’b’oozo, the Sleeping Giant. Ojibwe David Thompson, an Anishinaabeg Nation storyteller, relates the traditional story about Nana’b’oozo, who gave wisdom to his people and came to rest here after he passed to the spirit world. Some day he will return.