National Adult Literacy Database

November 11, 1996

This week, we are featuring a story written by Elsie Tom, from the Broman Lake reserve in British Columbia. Elsie is a sawmill worker and a mother of three children. Her interests include picking berries and camping on her dad's trapline. She wants to complete her education and get a job in the band office. She wrote this story while enrolled in an adult education class in Burns Lake, BC.

Mystery on the Lake

by Elsie Tom

One summer night a long time ago we were drifting on the lake on our canoe. We were trolling, with our fish hooks twirling in the water behind us with me and my friend and my brother just passing time away.

Hours had gone by and soon it was dark with moonlight reflecting on the lake. We sat motionless, listening to the darkness that surrounded us with the sound of fish jumping near and far, and the sound of the beaver tail as it hit the water.

There were no sound of a truck or a train nearby; also no sounds of a plane nor a jet way up in the darkened sky. Suddenly we all heard an eerie sound above us, like a whistling noise along with a swooshing sound, like a saucer soaring through the sky.

We glanced at each other, asking, "Did you hear that?" We glanced at the tracks, then to the road, then upwards. We knew that it was not a plane or a jet. Maybe it was a flying saucer, or was it?

We quickly grabbed for our oars and started paddling for home, still asking questions among ourselves : "Are you sure ?" "Yes, we heard it."

That eerie sound was something we would never forget, and to this day it remains a mystery.

[This story was taken from , published by Northern Literacy Readers, a collection of stories written by students in adult education programs in northern British Columbia, p.115.]