News and Events

Louis Bird - Pennishish - (March 4, 1934  -  June 11, 2026) has joined the ancestors.  

For many Canadian storytellers, Louis was a great storykeeper, generously sharing the stories of his Omushkego heritage.  He grew up on the west coast of Hudson Bay, and never left his beloved rivers, bay, and muskeg.  At an early age, he realized that he had received a unique and invaluable oral tradition from his parents, grandparents, and Elders, and he dedicated his life to remembering and telling these stories.  He travelled throughout his communities with a tape recorder, and spent endless hours transcribing these stories in his language.  He also wrote The Spirit Lives in the Mind- Omushkego Stories, Lives and Dreams (with Susan Gray), Telling Our Stories: Omushkego Legends and Histories from Hudson Bay (compiled and edited by Jennifer S. H. Brown and Paul W. DePasquale).  Both books record his passion for and deep knowledge of history, spiritual practices, and the major story-cycles of his people.  He also recorded Pennishish - Legends of the Omushkigowak, a 3-disc set of storytelling, for the StorySave program of Storytellers of Canada-Conteurs de Canada.  He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Manitoba (https://youtu.be/xpWHhPhIy1I?si=B62pVsflYO-WYvTF).  In later life, he began to tell stories at storytelling festivals, including in Holland and throughout Canada.  We were proud to feature him many times at the Toronto International Storytelling Festival.

He was a good friend.  I met him at the Yukon International Storytelling Festival.  I remember that he had an hour to tell stories one afternoon, and spent most of it introducing the story he had intended to tell.  He often said that his stories needed a lot of context to be understood by non-Indigenous listeners.  This didn't always accord with the scheduling plans of festival organizers.  For Louis, the long stories were the best.  He grew up in a tradition where stories might take many episodes and many nights to tell.  One of my greatest storytelling experiences was in my own kitchen, as Louis told stories to Hugh Lupton and me.  I recorded it (with his permission), and you can hear the bacon sizzling in the pan as he told us about the Wailing Clouds (also in his books).

I once asked Louis how he could remember so many stories, especially from so long ago.  He thought for a moment and then said, "When I remember a story, I remember it in the voice of the person who told it to me."  After many years of pondering this comment, I began to realize that the voices Louis carried reached far beyond the voices of his grandparents and Elders.  In the deepest sense he was carrying the stories that the Elders of his Elders had carried, and so on back for thousands of years.  He was responsible for keeping alive all the voices that had held and safeguarded his beloved stories.  Stories within stories, voices within voices - and now our great Teacher, with his endearing giggle and fierce dedication to storytelling, has become a voice that we are responsible for remembering and keeping alive.  May we honour this greatest of storytellers.

Here is a short video of Louis: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=965768229802624  

- Dan Yashinsky