This work is based on a traditional story told by the T’satsąot’inę (Copper People) and recorded in 'The book of the Dene' translated by Emile Petitot (1838-1916). Here is my telling of the story.

A Dene woman living along the shores of the Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories was kidnapped by an Inuk to be his wife. After barring him two children, she escapes her Inuit captives. On a long journey home, she discovers metal nuggets of copper. When she returns to her people, they do not welcome her back. In an attempt to win favour with them, she tells them of her copper discovery. She leads a small group of men in search of the metal. Along the way, the men lose faith in her story and they abuse her violently and abandon her on the tundra. Alone, heartbroken she sits down and begins weeping. As she weeps, she begins to sink into the ground. In her sorrow, she begins to produce tears of copper. It is said she could produce copper with her breath. As people came upon her in their travels, they offered her caribou meat in exchange for copper. In time, she slowly disappeared beneath the surface of the land, taking all the copper with her.