Rosalie Bourke, Cree Elder, and her daughter, Gladys Macpherson from Fort Smith, NWT

Mary Cardinal on Jan. 27, 2015 on the stars:

“The stars, bright stars, if you see a real shining bright star, that means those are the people who have left this world recently; the stars that are faded, those are the ancestors or the people that passed on a long time ago.

“Northern Lights are really spirits dancing.  That’s why they call them, “Cipiyak nimehitowak,” or, “the spirits are dancing.”  Dancing ghosts.

“You have to respect all things like that, you know. I was taught that way.

“When Northern Lights come down real real low, right above your head, that means you’re not going to live long, too. If you light a match, the northern lights are coming down—you throw it up--they will go higher. I know that because that’s what we used to do when we played outside when we were kids. Northern Lights used to come down and we just threw a match and they’d go up