Author's Note:

Minihapa Tales are an oral lore series that pushes against the privileging of the written word by giving us stories to listen to rather than read. They are stories from one person's imagination as they listen and bear witness to the wisdom that is the mountains. They attempt to articulate nature's experience of the visible and heartbreaking manifestations of human impacts on the earth. The tales are told from the perspective of Banff National Park’s iconic peak that many of us know and refer to as Cascade. But her name is Minihapa, which means the mountain where the water falls. This was the name given to our valley’s beloved guardian by indigenous peoples long before settlers came around.