Once there was a young Chippewa woman who was tired of the big city. She decided to return to the Indian Reservation in Northern Canada. Life was simpler there.
But before she left, she gave three weeks notice to the boss, collected her last paycheck, and began to pack her belongings. What a job that turned out to be!
Pictures, bedding, rugs, clothes, china, books, pots and pans — box after box until they almost reached the ceiling of her living room. She could almost see the envious looks of her friends on the reservation!
Packing made her so tired she fell asleep. She dreamed she had arrived on the banks of the Red River with her big pile of boxes spread around her. There she waited for her brother, who would bring a canoe for her journey home.
Finally her brother arrived. At first he seemed a little surprised at her pile of belongings, but he said nothing. He just went to work, carefully loading box after box into the canoe until it was nearly full. But the stack of boxes on the shore seemed no smaller.
“Why didn’t you bring a bigger canoe?” she cried.
Her brother answered quietly, “It’s the biggest canoe on the reservation. Besides, Grandmother said she was sure it would do.”
At the mention of her grandmother, the young Indian woman became very quiet. She had just remembered what her grandmother had said to her: “Remember, my dear one, if you have more things to move than can fill one canoe when you come back home, then you will know that you have become greedy. You will have taken more than your share, and others will not have enough. Don’t let that happen to you, my granddaughter.”
When the young woman woke up she found herself crying tears of shame. She had become greedy. She had taken more than her fair share. She knew she had to give away all her extra belongings and return to the reservation with only what she could carry in one canoe.