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Most Familiar Shape in the Stars

by Terence Dickinson
(Reprinted from Harrowsmith Country Life, 1995 May/June, Vol. 10, No. 57, pg. 57,
with permission of the publisher and author.)

The Big Dipper, the best-known stellar configuration in the northern hemisphere, is almost straight overhead in late spring. The Dipper's seven bright stars form an unmistakable pattern that has held a prominent place in nature lore for thousands off years. But despite its notoriety, it does not appear on any official constellation list. Rather it is part off the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear.

It's interesting that North American indigenous peoples, like the Greeks, associated these stars with the bear. To the Kootenay Indians, the constellation was a Female grizzly; For the Iroquois and Micmac, the Dipper's four howl stars created the bear, while seven pursuing hunters were represented by the three handle stars and four stars in the neighboring constellation we call Boötes. One hunter carried a pot for cooking the bear. You can see that pot if you look carefully at the second-to-last star in the Dipper's handle. It has a faint but distinct companion star, an example of a true double star, with the fainter Alcor slowly orbiting the brighter Mizar.

Today, the Dipper's primary function is more practical than mythic; it is an unrivaled guidepost to the major stars seen throughout the year. Sight along the curve off the Dipper's handle, then extend the curve one Dipper length, and you will be gazing at Arcturus, a bright golden star, the brightest in the late-spring sky. Now look at the two stars on the side of the bowl opposite the handle. A straight line drawn through those two stars and extending one Dipper length beyond the open side of the bowl will end at Polaris, the North Star.

But practicality aside, as you look at the Dipper, ponder this: Those stars appear the same today as they did hundreds of generations ago when someone first saw a wagon or a bear or a scoop in the sky. And by whatever name they knew it, all those generations probably used that stellar configuration to orient themselves in the night sky, just as we do today.

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