Izy's Out of Standard challenge: no snow

Over at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, for her Out-of-Standard challenge, Isadora Gruye has asked that members and contributors use the name "Eskimo" in a poem, without using or making reference to the word snow.
 
This, then, is something of a North American folktale, involving a First Nations person in the far north and a French Canadian person from farther south, which I have rewritten, with no intention of slighting the First Nations people, the French Canadian people, or religion in general.

My use of the French language might not be entirely correct, even though I asked my Anglo-French (educated in Montreal) husband for help. Some mockery, however, of the tourism industry might possibly be found herein.

 *

once there was a tourist

lost in The Great North Waste—

he cried out, “mon dieu, aidez moi!”

but he saw no sign of any god...

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he saw a great white owl,

which swooped toward him,

flew off toward the south,

then swooped toward him again,

back and forth

back and forth

to him and to the south,

several times,

many times.

exhausted from

shooing the owl away,

the tourist cried “mon dieu, aidez moi!”

but still saw no sign of any god...

that night he saw a bright star

hanging in the sky

moving closer and closer

to the southern horizon

as the earth moved.

shading his eyes from its brightness

he tried to get some rest

until morning, when the star was gone.

ever so very tired

from his restless night,

he cried in his exhaustion, “mon dieu, aidez moi”

over and over

and over again,

until he could cry no more,

and gave up.

the next thing he knew,

someone was shaking his shoulder,

“wake up,” said a voice, “wake up!”

and someone shook him again.

“pourquoi?” he mumbled

“je suis désolé, je ne reviens pas”

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 “wake up,” said the voice

 again, and again,

 until he opened his eyes

 and saw an Esquimaux

 standing beside a sled

 covered with fur blankets.

“ah, monsieur, vous avez m’aidez!

 merci beaucoup, monsieur Esquimaux,”

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Commons

and he continued to thank him

until they had travelled

to the nearest town

where the tourist’s wife

and children

and mother-in-law

were crying, “le bon dieu,

 il toi a sauvé,

 le bon dieu, il toi a sauvé!”

but the tourist insisted

that it had not been

any god who had saved him,

it had been an Esquimaux

who had finally found him.

“monsieur l’esquimaux m’a sauvé”

he stated firmly,

whereupon a voice

issued from the clouds,

and the Northern Lights

bounced to the rhythm of the voice:

“I sent an owl

 to  lead you to safety,

 but you chased

 the owl away.

 then I sent a star

 to lead you to safety

 but you hid your face

 from the star.”

“ but mon dieu, mon dieu,”

stuttered the tourist

“I remember, I was not saved

 until monsieur l’esquimaux...”

“and who do you think,”

thundered the voice

from the heavens:

“who do you think it was

 who sent the Eskimo?”

this adaptation by Kay L. Davies, December, 2013