A Journey to the Mother of the Sea

The sea animals have disappeared, and people are starving. An old couple, once great shamans, are asked to journey to the Mother of the Sea to find out what happened to the animals. But the journey is dangerous and the old woman does not know if she will be able to please the Mother of the Sea and convince her to free the animals the people of her community so desperately need. The Mother of the Sea is an important character in Inuit traditional stories shared across the circumpolar region. Known by many names across various regions of the Arctic, the Mother of the Sea is a powerful woman who can withhold the animals humans need to survive if she is displeased by human behaviour. Only a shaman is able to appease the Mother of the Sea and convince her to release the animals that the hunters so desperately need. This tale shares the specific traditional story of the Mother of the Sea told and retold in Greenland for generations.