John Curran
Northern News Services
Published Monday, August 27, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Long before the Europeans came or any mines opened on the shores of Great Bear Lake, the Dene people learned Port Radium was deadly and many of them stayed away.

Deline didn't exist yet and the people still lived on the land, often travelling in groups of families to hunt and fish.

One day a group of Dene was passing through the area and they decided to camp near what would eventually become known as Port Radium. Among them was a powerful medicine man, the Prophet Ayha.

During the night, the others awoke to the prophet singing. He did not wake himself, but sang for most of the night in his sleep.

In the morning the people asked him why he was singing in his sleep, so he told them of his vision. He said he saw boats and many houses with smoke coming out of them. There were people with white skin going into a great hole in the ground and coming back out with rocks.

These people were carrying the rocks away and he decided to see where they were going. So in his dream state he followed them across Great Bear Lake and down along the river network to Fort McMurray and beyond there into the U.S. There the people made a long stick and put the rocks in it. They then loaded the big stick into a giant bird, which then took flight so he followed it as it flew over wide-open water.

When it came back over the land, the bird dropped the stick and it burst into a giant ball of fire and many people who lived there were burnt.

"Those people looked a lot like us," said Prophet Ayha. "I was singing for them."

He then told the people that all of this would happen after they died.

Many years later, in September of 1940, the Prophet Ayha passed away.

On Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later another fell on Nagasaki.

- Sources: Joe Blondin Jr. and Leroy Andre