Content Warning: This section of the guide includes references to violence, including sexual violence and child abuse.  

The novel opens in February 1951 with 43-year-old Caribou hunter Abraham Okimasis winning Manitoba’s World Championship Dog Derby at the Trapper’s Festival: He is the first Cree man to do so. Reaching the finish line, Abraham nearly faints and senses a light. As he is pulled onto the stage and light bulbs flash around him, Abraham once again feels overwhelmed. He notices a white flame that looks like a child’s hand and seems to beckon him from a distance.

As part of the Trapper’s Festival, Miss Julie Pembroke from Wolverine River, Manitoba is crowned at the Fur Queen Beauty Pageant. Extraordinarily beautiful and dressed all in white, the Fur Queen presents Abraham with a trophy, a cheque for $1000, and a kiss. Abraham swoons for the third time, once again seeing the dancing white flame, which seems to melt into the folds of the Fur Queen’s cloak. To Abraham it seems the young woman floats up into the evening sky, taking her place among the stars. She waves her cape and it expands to become the aurora borealis, or northern lights. This is a story Abraham will often tell his youngest children.