Dear Steve,
When you told me the story of Anung I was immediately captured by the magic of it. When you asked me to popularize it, I was honored by your request. Where I have added to it, your magic has guided me.
I am one of many who owe you thanks. Though we were both just 15 that first summer we met at Delaney Lake, you took care of me like a big brother. You showed me how to do my jobs as a fishing camp laborer, you showed me the best places to fish and how to manage the portages and prepare shore lunch so that I was ready to be a fishing guide, and you showed me the truths and beauties of your family’s Ojibway culture. After just one summer with you my life would never be the same, and I was fortunate to have spent four.
You have battled bravely and tirelessly for your people, to the point of exhaustion and beyond. When the day comes that the people of Grassy Narrows can say they have received justice for the Mercury Poisoning that created such devastation, your leadership will be celebrated for its great importance. I hope to be with my Brother when that day comes.
I made a promise to you that night you told me the legend of Anung, after we fished the English River together for the first time in nearly 40 years. That promise is recorded here for the first time.
You asked me to do my best to turn this legend into a full story that would delight and inform people of all ages and all cultures, and I promised you I would. I promised to work to get it published. And I promised that if Anung was published and widely read that, along with accomplishing your goals and fulfilling my promise, I would invest a share of the financial success back into the health of Grassy Narrows.
I look forward to that happening and will work just as hard on the promotion of the book as I did on writing it.
Thanks Steve.
Your Brother,
Carl