The Story of Strong Man

By the Rev. David Sonmor

Many thousand years ago there was a man who lived in the North Country. His name was "Strong Man" and he was known to be a great hunter and a worthy protector for his family. Life in the North Country was very hard. The winters were long and it was very cold. 

One night Strongman had a dream and a person in his dream told him to take his family and travel to the south where he would find a beautiful land where life would be much easier on the old people and the women and children. So Strongman gathered his family together: his wife and children, his aged mother and father, his sisters and brothers with their husbands and wives and children. Altogether there must have been close to a hundred of them. He told them that they were going to travel to a new land where the fish and the beaver would be plentiful and corn and berries had long summers in which to grow plump and ripe. He was not sure how far it was. But he told them that if they just traveled so that the sun was on their left side in the morning and on their right side in the afternoon, or on cloudy days always looking at the dark, mossy side of the poplar trees, they would one day reach a place that they would know was the land promised to him in his dream.

So this large family gathered up all of their belongings and began slowly walking toward the south. They walked for many weeks and there was little change in the country. The old people and the young children were beginning to get very tired. So Strongman said that they would stop for seven days and make a camp and gather food and repair their clothing and most of all get some real rest. He told three of the young men to scout on ahead for seven days and mark a trail for the larger group to follow, and on the seventh day set up a camp and to spend the next seven days hunting and gathering food. This was done and it made traveling much easier for the elders and children.

When the large group got to the new camp three more scouts would be sent on ahead and the process was repeated. About the tenth time this was done Strongman noticed that there had been a considerable change in countryside and in the fish and game that was much more plentiful. So he decided to go out with the scouts because he had a strong feeling in his heart that they were getting close to the land he had been promised. On their third day out they came to a place where a wide creek flowed into a beautiful clear lake. Strongman sent the other two scouts back to the main camp with orders that everyone should break camp and come to where he was waiting. Five days later they all arrived and the next morning, as soon as the sun was making its first light to shine over the trees, Strongman led his people across the creek and into the wooded hills that bordered the lake. As they reached a small clearing in the trees where they could look out across the lake, the people knew that this was to be their new home.

On the slopes of the valley, leading down to the lake, the people built their homes using trees they cut from the forest. In the open areas they planted gardens and crops of grain. The forest around them provided plenty of food. There were many kinds of berries and plants which they could eat and many animals to provide meat and hides for making clothes. The lake was full of many kinds of fish, and the children delighted in fishing from the shore or from canoes made from bark of birch trees.

Life in this land was very good and the family grew and prospered just as it had been predicted in Strongman's dream.
The family of Strongman lived by the lake for many generations, and it grew to be a very large tribe. Several hundred years after Strongman died, his descendants felt that the place had become too small to provide for them so they packed up their belongings and moved once again to the south where there was more adequate land.

The place by the lake soon grew back to its natural state. The open areas grew in with grass and trees. The old homes decayed and crumbled, eventually dissolving into the earth. He birds and animals returned and the fish were replenished in the waters of the lake and creek.

Thousands of years later a different kind of people came to the place by the lake. All around the land was being cleared and plowed and farmed. But the new people felt so close to nature by the lake that they did not clear the trees away. Instead they kept it as a place to go for rest and peace and to be close to God's creation.
Today a summer camp for children, called Paulhaven is located on that special place. And if you look back through the forest you can find patches of wild strawberries and raspberries and gooseberries and blueberries that once had been part of the gardens of Strongman's people.

God has provided many beautiful places just like the land at Camp Paulhaven. They are places where people can enjoy all the gifts of nature that can make life pleasant. But we must remember that it is not just the place or the things that make life rich and enjoyable for us. It is the relationships and activities and experience of sharing and acting in friendly loving ways that brings us real joy.

Background Set
Courtesy of:

Music: Winds of Time
© 1999 Bruce DeBoer