FernFolio

When Kataujaq was small, she loved her mother. She loved sniffing her, because that is the way that the Inuit kiss, and hugging her. In the spring, she loved holding onto her mother while they travelled across the melting sea ice in a canoe tied to the dogsled, slipping precariously from ice to open water and back again, while her father ran along and called to the dogs. In the summer she loved picking flowers and finding rocks for her mother, which her mother loved and kept on the windowsill. In the fall, she loved picking berries with her mother and watching as she juggled and sang.
But then a big sickness comes, and Kataujaq’s mother goes away in an aeroplane and never returns home. No one tells the little girl what has happened. Kataujaq picks flowers for her grandmother, but it’s not the same. She thinks about her mother when she picks berries in the fall, or finds a pretty rock for the windowsill. And she cries for her mother at night.
In the early winter, the people of Kataujaq’s village go out onto the sea ice and play soccer under the stars for hours. Sometimes the Northern Lights come out, and then her grandmother comes down to the sea ice to watch. She tells Kataujaq that the Northern Lights are the spirits of the dead come out to play soccer in their new home in the sky, and that, when they play they are filled with joy, just as they were when they were mortal.
Kataujaq looks up and can see her mother up among the Northern Lights, smiling down at her as she turns to chase the ball, and the girl is happy to know her mother has not gone away after all.
Northern Lights The Soccer Trails is another wonderful story by Michael Kusugak that celebrates the Inuit belief that these magical lights are the souls of the dead playing their game of soccer in the heavens. A lovely book to share with someone grieving the loss of a loved one, it won the Ontario Arts Council’s Ruth Swartz Award.
FernFolio Editor