Whitefish River storyteller captivates audience in Toronto festival
By Rick Garrick
TORONTO—Whitefish River storyteller Esther Osche shared stories about The Legend of the Coyotes and The Creator’s Gift during the 2018 Toronto Storytelling Festival.
“The story is an explanation of why dogs sniff each other in the tails when they meet,” Osche says about The Legend of the Coyotes story she shared with children and parents at the First Nations Stories storytelling session on March 25 at the Toronto Reference Library. “I first heard the story from my grandpa a long time ago when we were sitting out in the back and we saw a couple of dogs meet on the road and they immediately went to each other’s tails and sniffed. My grandpa said, ‘Do you know why they do that?’ and I said, ‘No’ and I got the story.”
Osche says children enjoy stories such as The Legend of the Coyotes.
“It’s comical and they find the story fantastical, but later on you will see them going, ‘Well, there really is no other explanation’,” Osche says. “So that will work and they start to buy into it. So it’s really nice, it’s just an entertaining story.”
Osche says it is important to share the legends and other First Nations stories with other people so they can see how First Nations view the world.
“It kind of gives you a little bit of a birds-eye view into the way we look at the world,” Osche says. “It’s magical and comical, but it can be serious and teaching too. I selected this story because I just want to entertain the children today, but other stories will translate our values, our teachings, our practices and way of life and pure entertainment sometimes.”
Osche began storytelling about 35 years ago when her children were young.
“I gathered them around the campfire to settle then down after a long, hectic active day,” Osche says. “I would make them some hotdogs and marshmallows and I would start to tell them the same tales my grandpa told me. I’d have them transfixed, and then of course sleepy, and then ready for bed.”
Osche shared The Creator’s Gift story with adults during the Storytellers in Concert storytelling session on March 24 at Artscape Wychwood Barns.
“Adults like entertaining stories as well and can relate to stories that children hear in a very creative or magical sense,” Osche says. “Sometimes, adults just don’t want to hear all the heavy stuff, but just laugh and play, too.”
Osche says she loves the storytelling tradition, noting that it is “very much alive in every single culture.”
“I think we should enhance it—prove its value and keep sharing,” Osche says. “But [what’s] really important is to keep repeating the stories so that others hear them and are able to repeat them and keep them alive that way. That’s our way of keeping our teachings and our stories alive. We repeat them over and over.”
Osche also enjoyed hearing the stories of other storytellers during the festival, including South African storyteller Nokugcina Elsie Mhlophe.
“She just made me want to get up and find that twinkle in our youth’s eye and do not rest until we see it there,” Osche says. “She was very inspiring and the two other storytellers were so comical. I love listening to other storytellers.”
The Toronto Storytelling Festival was held from March 2-4 and March 19-25 at 25 venues in Toronto, with about 80 storytellers sharing stories at about 95 events.