KELE

Hello my name is Kele witch means ‘sparrow’ I am 12 years old. I live in a long house with my papa and ma. I have on brother his name is Len witch means ‘flute’ he is 6 years old. I live in the Yurok tribe in the Pacific Northwest. My favorite hobby is making a canoe. It is actually quite easy you just find a beautiful long thick tree cut the tree down and make a hollow hole long enough for two people. My brother Len hates canoe carving. My papa is the best at fishing. Once he caught 26 fish in two days. He didn’t have to go fishing the next month. The only problem though is that my family got sick of salmon all the time so we ate nuts, berries, and seaweed. We also ate ma’s acorn flower she would make. Len is more of a fisherman type of person like papa. He’s not that great at being a fisherman at all. Today Len and I went fishing. I heard from my friend Chayton, Chayton means ‘falcon’ that there was a fisher man on his boat on this river, Klamath river and that he was going fishing and saw a strange movement. H said he thought it looked like a weird fish with an oddly shaped body. I told him that I’ll would see for myself. I asked Len and papa if ever has seen anything suspicious. Len said ‘No’. Papa said ‘Yes’. Then papa told us the story of when he was a little kid he was fishing with his papa, and he felt something dive under the boat. Then again, then again, and then it stopped for a long time. After him and his papa were done fishing and walked home he saw something jump up in the air and was no fish. We asked papa what it was he said ‘I never knew what it was’. When we were fishing we didn’t see anything that except fish. The next day thought things got really suspicious.



Chayton and I went to go investigate this ‘creature’ at Klamath River. We didn’t find anything that day. The next day on the other hand we found something jump in the air just like papa did. To Chayton and me it looked like a mermaid. We saw it for sure! The only problem was we didn’t know what this mysterious creature was. On the next day we went out on the river in one of the canoes I carved out. Len wanted to come to so we let him. We all brought our nets incase we saw anything suspicious. Indeed we did we saw a creature lurking in the waters. Len was crying like a baby. Well he is only six years old. Then something hit the bottom of the canoe. SPLASH! Chayton, Len, and I fell right into the river! We panicked until I suggested we went back to shore. Len can not swim so I had to carry him on my back then swim him to land.




While we were walking back to the longhouse. Ma asked us why we were so soaked in water. Then we told her all about how the creature tipped the boat over and, how we had to swim back to land. The next day I was desperate to find something. I went out to the river by myself. As soon as I got on the river I saw a bunch of movement. Left, right, left, forward, backward, it was moving everywhere. I couldn’t catch up with it with my eyes. Then what do know it jumped up again. The first thing I said when I saw it. ‘Dolphin’!