From my window, I can see Odzihozo, sitting in the lake, wearing a coat of rime and snow. He looms out of the fog, or is obscured by a squall of snow, but sooner or later everything clears and I see him where he has always been – watchful, immutable, staring at the world he made.

Odzihozo is an upthrust of rock rising from Lake Champlain, just off Shelburne Point. He plays a prominent role in the creation story of the Abnaki people, who lived in the Champlain Valley before the coming of Europeans. To the Abnaki, Odzihozo was the creator, the transformer. He was a creature with arms, but no legs. He traveled from place to place, pulling with his arms and dragging his body behind him. The legend says he traveled all over this region, making it what it is today. It was his dragging body that separated the peaks of the mountains one from the other. The weight of his body dug the valleys and gorges, laid down the course for the rivers and creeks to follow. In the last of his travels, Odzihozo cut the valley of the lake and caused it to fill with water. Of all his creations, the broad lake was most pleasing to Odzihozo, so he climbed onto a rock and turned himself to stone so he might gaze at his lake for all time. Odzihozo was the creator, and to thank him for his creation, the Abnaki who passed in their canoes would stop and leave a gift of tobacco.

White people have a different name for Odzihozo. That particular formation is listed on maps and navigation charts as “Rock Dunder.” There must surely be a story or an explanation for how this name came to be, but no one seems to know what it is. Every book I’ve consulted, every person I’ve asked, says the history of the name has been lost. The only lore white people attach to Rock Dunder is that it is a hazard to navigation.

In the same area, one group of people still tell a story that supposedly dates back to the creation of the world, another group cannot keep track of their story for 300 years. And that’s with writing and printing.

The white people, in the early days, belonged to various tribes. Some were French from Quebec, some were English from New England, some were Dutch from Albany. The name “Rock Dunder” sounds like it has a Dutch origin. When the white people began to fight amongst themselves, the Abnaki people threw their lot in with the French from Quebec. That was unfortunate for the Abnaki, because the French lost to the British and the British lost to the Americans. The Americans divided themselves still further on the issue of who owned the land of the Abnaki. The land was simultaneously claimed by New York and New Hampshire. Eventually, the white people formed their own country, the Green Mountain Republic, and soon after joined the United States. The Abnaki people got lost in all this back and forth and their land was lost to them. Today, the Abnaki are not recognized by the federal government and it is unlikely they ever will be. To acknowledge the Abnaki would be to admit they may have a claim on some of the land in the Champlain Valley, valuable land coveted by developers. To discourage Abnaki people from claiming their land, some people claim the Abnaki is a culture that never was, that these people never formed a coherent society and can therefore never claim land. On one hand, that statement sounds like so much whistling past the burial ground from some flotsam that drifted over from Europe and is now trying to ignore an 11,000-year-old archeological record. On the other hand, it’s cruel enough to take someone’s land without denying their identity in the process.

Meanwhile, in the lake, Odzihozo sits and watches. He does not speak. He shames us with his silence.