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Grade 1, Village Elementary School, Hartland, Michigan

A Retelling by the Busy Bees of Room 20

       Before there were people there were three black bears that lived in a forest.  The forest was on the edge of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin.  The three bears were Mother Bear and her two cubs.  Mother Bear fed her cubs fish from the stream and berries from the forest. 

       One day there was a fire zooming through the forest.  All the animals in the forest, even the fox, went running very quickly to the lake.  Mother Bear and her cubs had to swim across Lake Michigan.  Mother Bear had to look back at her cubs to see if they were okay.  Just as Mother Bear got to the shore she couldnÕt see her cubs.  She flopped on the sand and she was sad.  She waited through all the seasons for her cubs to come back to her.  Finally, she went to sleep. 

       The wind blew sand all over her.  The Great Spirit brought her cubs up from the bottom of the lake.  They became the Manitou Islands.  Now Mother Bear can keep watch over her cubs forever. 

       If you go to the edge of Lake Michigan you can still hear her calling  to her cubs.