Once upon a time in Galets Cape on the bank of the actual Tchouktche sea, lived a young and beautiful girl with long black hair called Naou. In this icy country, she enjoyed eating berries in the summer, running in the Taïga, talking with the animals whose language she knew. She didn’t see any difference between herself, the animals, the stones, the birds or the wind.
Every morning, she would go to the sea to have a look at a strange rainbow coming closer and closer everyday. The fascinating rainbow which was created from the sunlights play in the fountain of a whale, attracted her a lot. When she looked at it she felt special, impatient and with a sense of something missing.
When the whale arrived every day, it was a great moment of happiness. The young and beautiful girl wanted to touch the whale so badly, and whenever she had to leave in the evening she would be very sad. Then suddenly one day, to her great amazement, the whale became a handsome young man. She called him Reou reminding her of the noise of the fountain (…)

How they met each other
He was everything that she had been waiting for, everything that she had missed. They were always together and only left each other at night when Reou went back into the deep waters of the sea, because he was afraid to keep his human apparence.

They were incredibly happy. But then one day the first iceberg came. Winter would arrive at any moment meaning that they would have to be separated. Naou was afraid that Réou would leave her to follow his whale family into the warmer sea.
The bay was almost completely covered with ice when Reou told Naou that he had decided to stay with her and that they both would live like human beings (…). The beginning was difficult. They needed to protect themselves from the cold weather and hunt to be able to eat. But they surpassed all the difficulties.

The descendants of Naou and Reou
Naou gave birth to two whales. She fed them like they were two little baby humans. They grew up in the bay between their two families : whales and humans. After the first children were born, many others arrived. There were more and more Iarangue (fur tents) around Naou and Reou.
The work was hard but hunting and fishing was always good and gave enough food for the winter. The children and grand-children grew up in good health. Every summer, when the whales came back, it was always a great time (…)
Reou died very old. Naou stayed alive for a very long time telling the children of her grand-children and many other generations the story of the most beautiful manifestation of nature : the Great Love, which allowed the union of a woman and a whale and the birth of the Tchoukche tribe (…)/

From "The Tchoukotka tales" of Iouri Rytkéou, tchouktch writer