I remember the many nights I would be outside my home in La Ronge and watching the night sky. My auntie and I were great friends that time and we would venture out to see if we would see UFOs and shooting stars.
I remember seeing my first satellite and thinking it was more than a star, it had to be a flying saucer. Of course, later, my other aunties had to kill it on me by telling me that what we saw were satellites. They were built by the rocket scientists who made the rockets for space travel. I remember not wanting to believe what they said.
In the trapline, when the night sky was clear, the stars would be very vibrant. It was like you could see every star with the naked eye. Shooting stars were few and far between but satellites would be cruising across the sky and I would wonder if they would collide with the stars (I was about 5-6 years old).
In Hall Lake, I saw a shooting star break into two pieces (it was August that time when the meteor shower would be active). I could never make a wish in time during a streaking star and I do not remember I wished for (maybe they came true).
Some of the static bright stars were more of a mystery because we did not know they were planets. As far as I was concerned, it could have been a stationed UFO hanging in the sky. Now I know the planets make their appearances during certain times of the year.
My cousin and I saw a long streaking comet near the Montreal River bridge in La Ronge. It streaked almost the whole length of the sky. It was awesome. It was in 1986, when Halley’s Comet was due to streak within view of the earth. We wondered if that was what we saw.
Comet Video by Mustafa Keskin from Pixabay
On July 1st of 2015, Canada Day, my wife was walking back to our apartment from town, when she saw three lights in the sky. They looked peculiar because the lights did not look or behave like stars or anything else, she had ever seen. She looked on at the lights as they seem to move on their own. She looked down to her shoes for a second and when she looked back up, the lights were gone.
At the time, I was skeptical of her story and her recollection of the lights behaving the way they did. It was not until recently that I watched a trailer of a documentary called “Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind,” that I noticed the lights were like the ones my wife described. I called her to the room, and she told me that the lights were very similar to what she saw. Incidentally, the video I showed her was recorded on June 21, 2015, ten-days before she saw the lights on July 1st.
I have done some online research on the lights for that year and there seems to be no real explanation. I wish I could see something like that. I really do not have the patience to stand outside and stare at the sky, maybe in the summertime I will (probably not).
kāpahkisīhk acāhkos – meteor
kīsik – sky
kōsōt acāhkos – comet
machi-pimithākan – bad flying device or object, UFO, flying saucer
Weblinks:
Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun (2020) | Official Trailer HD – https://youtu.be/CRK6IA–Swk
Lights in the sky – https://maas.museum/observations/2007/02/22/report-a-sighting/comment-page-87/
The brightest planets in November’s night sky: How to see them (and when) – https://www.space.com/33619-visible-planets-guide.html
CREE WANT ‘SPIRITUAL’ METEORITE RETURNED – http://www.nationnewsarchives.ca/article/cree-want-spiritual-meteorite-returned/
Alberta battle brewing over meteorite “with face of the Creator” – https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/alberta-battle-brewing-over-meteorite-with-face-of-the-creator/
Spirit of the Stone – https://www.ecfoundation.org/blog/spirit-of-the-stone/
Alberta meteorite sparks battle for sacred rock – https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-meteorite-sparks-battle-for-sacred-rock-1.1243774
Manito Stone: Native Cree Beliefs of the Iron Creek Alberta, Canada Iron Meteorite – https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241329389_Manito_Stone_Native_Cree_Beliefs_of_the_Iron_Creek_Alberta_Canada_Iron_Meteorite
71st Annual Meteoritical Society Meeting (2008) – https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/metsoc2008/pdf/5003.pdf
Meteor Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
Comet Image by TheOtherKev from Pixabay
Comet Video by Mustafa Keskin from Pixabay