Week 9 Storytelling: Evelyn

Dear Evelyn,

I hope the winter is going well in Canada. It has been weird not getting to see you everyday and go on adventures. Florida has been nice but it is definitely a lot different than home. All the other Ravens don't really get why I would marry a penguin but I just tell them you haven't met my wife then. Don't worry, not all the ravens are judgmental. I have been able to make some really good friends on the fly down and while I have been here.

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The fly down was probably the craziest trip I have been on though. As you know we started early that morning just after dawn. I can't express to you how long the line was at the border. You know when you see those pictures on TV of the worlds craziest traffic jams? They look like it would take you the rest of the day just to count the cars. It was like that but worse. We did not pick the right day to travel that is for sure. Then once we got to the booth to have our passports checked one of my cousins had to get taken back and questioned. Apparently they thought he was a different bird that had the same name who was wanted for pooping on sacred land. Took them about 2 hours to figure out that it wasn't him. Everyone was really excited to get past the border and right after we all played that racing game we like to play. My group one so that was a lot of fun! The fun soon ended after when we were flying across the midwest. I swear hunting is the only thing humans do in that part of the United States. Also, they all have such ridiculously nice guns that it is actually terrifying. No one in our group ended up getting picked off but the group ahead of us had two guys go down. Definitely a sobering moment of how precious life can be. I will never fly over Nebraska again that is for sure. After that it wasn't too bad until we were about to enter Florida. No one new this but there was a hurricane that was hitting land on the western coast of Florida right as we were about to cross the state line. This made for an interesting decent to say the least. There were probably a half dozen times that I thought I was going to get brain damage from how hard it was raining. A couple guys forgot their goggles and had to find shelter on the ground. I was worried for them since there are so many alligators in Florida. I had to concentrate so hard on my flight path I completely forgot to keep an eye on my friends and so I got very lost at one point. I finally found them after what seemed like forever and we got back on the right path. We eventually made it to Miami and all was well. I think I slept for like 14 hours after that trip haha. Here is a picture I took along the way!

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I have been missing you these past couple days really bad. I wish we could just hang out at the end of the day and have dinner together. In a way you are lucky you can't fly and can live through the winter up there. Florida is definitely not home and I miss our friends. I hope you have been getting to swim since I know it is your favorite. How is Agatha doing? Has she and Bernie gotten back together yet? You'll have to let everyone I say hi.

Can't wait to hear back from you and hear how you are doing! I hope you guys are having fun up there.

Love,

    Pete


Author's Note.
The inspiration for this story came from Raven's Marriage, which is a story in the Alaskan Legends compilation. In the original story Raven has decided it is time to find a wife. All the birds are about to head to the summer land because winter is coming quickly. Raven wants to find a wife to fly to summer grounds with. At first he is rejected again and again by all sorts of birds. He eventually finds a magic stone that helps him become appealing to a goose that ends up marrying him. On their way to the summer land he seems to be strong and graceful until near the end of the journey. He begins to become very tired as they are crossing the sea and eventually he can no longer keep up with the other geese. The leaders decide they cannot wait for him any longer to catch up. He loses his wife and the magical stone. He makes it to shore but he is all alone.

I wanted to make the story a little bit more personable so I decided to make my story a letter from a husband bird to his wife back home. I thought it would be funny to have two different types of bird be married because I feel like you never see that. I had the husband tell the story about his flight down because I always wonder how far it is birds have to travel for migration and how hard it is to make that that trip. I am from Michigan and I have had my fair share of long and crazy road trips in the past so I think that was part of what inspired me. The original story was kind of sad and gloomy so I wanted to make mine a little bit more happy and loving. I wanted to show a husband that was missing his wife.

Bibliography.
Raven's Marriage, Myths and Legends of Alaska, Katharine Berry Judson, 1911.

Week 9 Reading Diary Continued: Alaskan Legends

This is the second part of my reading notes for week 9 that are over Alaskan Legends.

I like the story about the first woman. I think it could be interesting to have a story that incorporates men meeting woman for the first time. I could imagine it being so odd to see someone so similar to you yet so different. The differences could become even more pronounced once they get to know how each other think.

I think it could be fun to write a story about what someone experiences after they are dead. Maybe there could even be two perspectives. One could be sort of a native americans heaven and the other a native americans hell.

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I have always been captivated by killer whales. Probably because of the movie "Free Willie" from when I was a kid. I think it would be cool to do a sort of native american version of free willie but with a twist. In the story I liked how he rode the killer whales out into the ocean and I think that could be fun to incorporate into my story.

Week 9 Reading Diary: Alaskan Legends

For this week's reading I decided to look at Alaskan Legends for the Native American section.

I like how it talks about man first coming to earth. It would be fun to do a story that involved man coming to earth for the first time. Or maybe someone who has been lost in time comes to an era that he has never experienced before.

I also like how the raven is a repeating character. It could be fun to incorporate a character that I previously used in another story.

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In the raven's marriage story he just all of a sudden decides to get married. I think it could be fun to do a story that dives into that a little deeper. Maybe raven talks more about why he wants to be married. Then once e is I could talk about the things he didn't expect and the good and challenging things that go along with marriage.