I have just been treated to a good collection of stories and photos of my second home, Kahbamiue Tue/Colville Lake, where adult education teacher Jerry Huculak has been working with the elders council to help preserve their history.

This elders council was first set up in 2005 and with the help of the GNWT Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment began collecting these stories.

The book contains a total of 66 wonderful tales of life on the land and memories of a time now past.Legend of Starvation is one that immediately caught my eye. It is in the words of my aunt Marie Kochon, matriarch of the largest family in this tiny fishing village.

In a tale very similar to the one to do with our Dene cultural hero Yamoria, a woman is starving after both her husband and son died. She goes to her brother for help, but is turned away when he does not want to hear the sad news of their relatives' passing.

Along the way, she finds an abandoned baby which she decides to save. Eventually the wondrous child leads her out of these starving times, first "finding" a caribou leg, then an entire herd he killed with bow and arrows. This leads to the boy killing beaver from which the woman makes clothing. The story has a happy ending, with a reunion of lost relatives.

Other elders featured here are Alexis Blancho, Antoine Kochon and Johnny and Madeline Blancho, among many others. They tell of the Dene Road from Kahbamiue Tue/Colville Lake to Radilih Koe/Fort Good Hope, a five-night trek over hilltop gravel in summer and by dogteam in Winter.

I have always been interested in history and in fact helped out Rene Fumoleau on a history of our Treaties 8 and 11, titled "As Long As This Land Shall Last," back in the mid-1970s.

This new one, though, is full of all kinds of pictures, some of my immediate family. I am quite certain that "Our Story of Colville Lake" will be cherished by the people and youth of the future as a reference of their history. Mahsi Cho, thank you.