Chahkabesh discovers a group of giants hunting beavers and despite his sister's warning never to approach them, he finds them again and, upon their taunting, snags a beaver out of the water. However, the beaver does not belong to him and when he runs off with it (breaking a giant's arm when they try to stop him), they come to his home and, not finding him, abduct his sister instead. Quickly, Chahkabesh finds his bow, follows them and kills all the giants to save his sister. Together they return to their home and make broth with the beaver meat and melted snow.

Chahkabesh hears a strange sound, which his sister tells him is the giant women collecting wood in the morning. He promises his sister never to go back but the next day he returns to where he heard the sound, equipped with a bladder of fish-fat for a snack. As he nears the place, a whiskey-jack alights near him and he kills it to wear its skin and fly into the giant women's camp. When they discover the whiskey-jack, they figure it is Chahkabesh and try to boil him to make a broth but he opens his fish-fat bladder to stop the boiling. When the women come to look at the cauldron covered with fat, Chahkabesh bursts out and pours the broth all over them, killing them. He also kills the wounded giant whose arm he broke before.

Chahkabesh finds what appears to be a blazed trail and wishes to set snares to trap whatever caused it but his sister forbids it because that region is where the sun walks when it rises in the morning. Chahkabesh does not heed his sister's warnings and sets a trap where the sun walks. The next morning, both brother and sister wake up early but the dawn does not arrive and they figure it must be because Chahkabesh actually snared the sun. He sets off to free it but the sun is shining too hot to get near so he asks his friend, the littlest mouse, to gnaw through the snare line so the sun may walk again.

When Chahkabesh shoots an arrow at a bird and misses, it lands in the lake. He is too afraid to retrieve it, however, because of the strange creatures creating ripples on the surface. He tells his sister about it and she warns him never to return to that lake because if he goes into the water the fish will surely grab hold of him. Chahkabesh ignores the warning and jumps into the lake the very next day and is promptly swallowed by a fish. His sister grows worried when he doesn't come home and goes to the lake herself and hooks the fish that swallowed him. She slits the fish down the middle and saves Chahkabesh.

After hunting one day, Chahkabesh's sister tells him to get snow from outside but warns him not to look up at the moon. Soon, however, he looks up at the moon and stares at it as hard as he can and is consequently drawn up by it. That is why Chahkabesh now appears on the moon.

Weesakechahk lures many birds into his trap by refusing to sing outdoors for them and instead building a wigwam for them with snares all over. He instructs the birds to dance according to his song lyrics so that when he sings of eyes closing, they close their eyes and when he sings of dancing with their necks together, that's what they do. That is when he pulls on the snares and chokes the birds. The loon gets suspicious of the noises, however, and when he opens his eyes, he runs away. Weesakechahk kicks him in the back, flattening the loon forever. Then, Weesakechahk decides to bury the dead birds and cook them in the hot sand but he is robbed overnight and discovers only the feet still in the sand.

Weesakechahk joins a bear that is gathering berries to fatten up and discovers that the bear cannot see well at all. Despite the bears reservations, Weesakechahk convinces the bear to let him crush berries into his eyes, claiming that this remedy is what cured his own eyes. When the bear's eyes start to burn, Weesakechahk tells him to close them and meanwhile fetches some stones and beats the bear to death. As he begins to cook the bear, he realizes that he's not hungry enough to eat a lot so he asks two trees to flatten out his stomach so that he can eat but the trees trap him between them and tell the forest animals to go eat the bear. When Weesakechahk finally frees himself, nothing is left for him except the liver and innards he'd thrown aside earlier. This is a lesson about not throwing food away when it is plentiful.

Weesakechahk comes upon a flock of waveys getting ready to fly to a place where it is never winter and he wishes to go with them. The leader of the waveys gives him permission to go with them but the trip is delayed as the waveys must eat heartily to fatten up. Then, after purging and cleaning themselves, the flock and Weesakechahk take off in the middle of the night with strict instructions to only look in the direction they are flying. Someone calls out to Weesakechahk as he is flying, however, and when he looks down to see who it is, he is shot and his wing is broken. He plummets to the ground but he does not die, he gets up and walks. They say that is why wavey geese are never killed by falling out of the sky.

This story teaches children not to laugh at anyone who is in trouble. There were once two families living together during winter who lived mostly on hunting rabbits. One day, one of the hunters came back earlier than expected with blood covering his hands from a rabbit bite and was laughed at by his companion. His companion thought he was inept and that angered the hunter who decided to cast a spell on the one who laughed at him. The next day, the companion went on the rabbit hunt and was confronted by waves of increasing numbers of rabbits until there were too many to kill. The rabbits feasted on him and all that remained days later were his bare bones on the snow.

This is a lesson about abusing creatures. Once there was a man who, during the hot summer, was repeatedly stung by mosquitoes because he had nothing with which to kill them. Later, he collected all the mosquitoes in a jar and when winter came, he took his revenge by spreading them outside so that they froze instantly. When spring and summer returned, however, the mosquitoes came back and never gave him a moment's peace, no matter what he did or where he went. That's why creatures shouldn't be abused, because they are defenseless and such actions bring requital on the person committing the atrocities.

Once, during winter, there was a man whose younger brother got so cold that he froze to death. When the snow began to thaw, the older brother kicked at the snow and dared it to come freeze him and the snow threatened to do just that. So, during the summer, the older brother gathered burning wood and animal grease and waited for winter. One winter night, it got extremely cold and the man sat there keeping the fire going and adding grease to make it last until finally some snow started to melt. Then, the snow conceded defeat and promised not to bother him again.

When Xavier, the narrator, was a child, his family had a beaver for a pet. During the day he slept but during the night he worked hard at cutting willow sticks until there was a pile blocking the door. He worked hard to close the door completely like he would on the river and in the morning he would be asleep.

Xavier, the narrator, used to have an otter as a pet. He slept at night and was up early in the morning but returned to bed in the afternoon. In winter, his family would cut two holes in the ice and tie a string around the otter's paw. The otter would dive into one hole and come out the other, effectively placing the string for the net under the ice.

Xavier, the narrator, used to have hawks in his family's care from the time when they didn't even have feathers yet. They ate a lot of fish, once a day, and when they grew bigger they didn't want to leave. Also, the hawk was useful in keeping mice away.