The Great Spirit heard his prayer. He leaned down from the sky, scooped up a great amount of earth, and made the Cascade Mountains as a wall between Ocean and the dry country. The long and deep hole left where the earth had been, Ocean soon filled with water. Today people call it Puget Sound. The people east of the mountains are still punished for their selfishness and greed. Ocean sends so little moisture over the range that they do not have all the plants that grow along the coast. But they still have the pits their grandfathers dug. They are Lake Chelan and the lakes south and east of it.

–“The Origin of Puget Sound and
the Cascade Range,”
Ella E. Clark

What does this Plateau legend work to explain?

the culture of the Plateau people
the organization of Plateau tribes
the wildlife of present-day Washington
the geography and climate of the region