Cree legend tells the story of how seasons change

This week Saskatchewan passed six months with snow on the ground and below zero temperatures.

“When will this end?” people complain to me, as if I could do something about it. The feeling among Prairie residents is grim as we trudge through the longest, coldest winter in decades.

But don’t despair, summer will get here eventually; it always does.

The explanation is simple but complicated at the same time.

We must go back to our Cree legends about the creation of the world we inhabit. The weather and daylight are regulated by the four winds. This includes the west and east winds that give us each new day. Wapun, the east wind, frees the sun each morning and sets it on its journey. Nepawinuk, in the west, catches the sun at the end of its journey of crossing the sky and returns it to Wapun. These two get along and are good friends.

On the other hand the north wind and the south wind quarrel and squabble among themselves. The north wind, known as Keewatin, and the south wind, called Sawin, are two brothers who can’t agree on anything and as a result they are in constant conflict with each other.

Every autumn, Keewatin comes south and does battle with Sawin and after some skirmishes defeats Sawin and he heads south for the winter. This explains why we don’t have a clear change between summer and winter. As the two brothers fight, Keewatin might get the upper hand and we will have an early snowfall, than Sawin will rally and bring on a spell of warm weather that might last into the late autumn. But in the end Keewatin will triumph and Sawin will go south to a warmer place.

This leaves Keewatin to freeze the land and

This back and forth battle has been going on as long as the Earth has existed.

bring on more snow. The bears will go to sleep and the water birds will head south. But freezing the land is not necessarily a bad thing. With the land frozen the hunters can get out on the land, the canoes are put away and the dog teams come out. The animals grow long coats of fur and they are trapped for their pelts, which keep the people warm over the winter.

As the winter wears on, Keewatin grows weaker, the days get longer and the temperature begins to warm up.

It is now that Sawin returns and by now Keewatin, tired from ravaging the land, will eventually be defeated by Sawin and return to the north land where he will spend the summer.

This back and forth battle has been going on as long as the Earth has existed. But today changes are coming and they are disrupting the long established order.

The people have been burning fossil fuels for over a century and releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This has resulted in the greenhouse effect and the planet has been warming. Today, very little of the Arctic sea ice remains in the summer and the Arctic summers are warming.

Because the northern climate is warmer, Keewatin can go home and recuperate sooner and come back to the south much stronger.

The result is that we are having more extreme weather with harsher storms.

On the other hand, when Sawin goes south he gains more energy from the warm sun and once again the weather is out of kilter with more and stronger hurricanes and killer droughts on the prairies and forest fires in the north. When the two brothers meet, their fighting has more energy and the spring and fall storms are longer and harsher.

So, the weather is changing, and we can expect more extreme weather with storms, droughts and both warmer and colder winters.

Mankind has changed the atmosphere and the long-established pattern of winter and summer is blurred. Keewatin and Sawin are caught in this man-made catastrophe and we can no longer count on normal weather.

This winter, Keewatin was strong and like an unwanted house guest he refused to leave early. For the past month or so Sawin has been trying to push Keewatin out the door and it looks now that he is succeeding, and summer is on its way.