But even though there is a lot of work, there is a lot of fun to be had, socializing to be done and pleasure in nature, in Nokomis's storytelling and celebrations with other Ojibwe to be had.

There are hides to be scrapes and tanned, new makazins to be made, food to be planted, harvested, dried and stored in the cold earth, fish to be caught and dried, and wood to be chopped and stacked. There is a lot of work to be done during each season, most of it in preparation for surviving the winter when food is scare and the cold is bitter. Now in the Summer of 1947, Omakayas begins to slowly and in great detail narrate the life of her family and other Ojibwe over a period of four seasons. Omakayas is unaware of what happened to her as a baby, but knows that Old Tallow had a special affection for her. The baby was named Omakayas, or Little Frog because her first step a hop, and she lives with her new family her DeyDey, her Mama Yellow Kettle, Nokomis (grandma), beautiful older sister Angeline, greedy and annoying younger brother Pinch and baby brother Neewo. The baby is rescued and brought to an Anishinabe or Ojibwe family to be raised on another Lake Superior island they call Island of the Golden Breasted Woodpecker, in a village called LaPointe. One of the men decides to tells his wife about the baby, sure that this brave, fearless woman named Old Tallow would rescue the baby.

Knowing sickness has claimed the lives of everyone on the island except this little girl, the men get back into their canoes and leave, afraid and sure the baby will soon die of the same sickness as her family. The Birchbark House begins with a rather grim prologue that describes a baby girl crawling around the bodies of her family and crying while a group of men stand watching her on the shoreline of a small Lake Superior island.

The birchbark house story