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The Legend (1994)

Wood Engraving
Dale DeArmond
Artist's Edition: 25
Edition of Artist Proofs: 2

Paper type: Archival quality
Print size: 7 ½" x 8 ½"
Image size: 5" x 6"

Hand pulled by the artist from the original endgrain maple block on an Ettan etching press at Sitka, Alaska, April, 1994.

This print is an attempt to put all the elements of an Athabascan folktale into an engraving. The story is about a young man who paddled his canoe across the sea to woo a beautiful woman. She was rude and unkind to him and fell into quicksand and drowned. The girl's mother bade [made] her two bears make a terrible storm but the young man threw his spear and calmed the waters. The spear bounced off two waves and Raven turned them into Mt. Denali and a smaller mountain. When he reached shore the young man found that the baby he had taken in his canoe had become a young woman. They married and repopulated the earth. The storm had destroyed everyone on earth except the parents of the baby. They repopulated the land across the sea.