Moon of the Crusted Snow

Author/Guide: Waubgeshig Rice

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: What happens when a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark, gets cut off from the world…

ISBN: 978-1770414006
Genre: Fiction

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What you need to know before your trail

With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow. The community leadership loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision.

Travel Guide

Wasauksing First Nations

First Nations – Wasauksing First Nations

A cracked echoed through the boreal landscape a momentary chaos in the still afternoon air. In the near distance, a large bull moose fell to its side….the smell of gunpowder briefly dominated the crisp scent of impending winter.

The hunter says a prayer in English and with Ojibwe words peppered through the text an offering to the creator and Mother Earth for allowing him to take this life. He leaves some tobacco at the scene – an offering in exchange for what he has taken.

“It was the Ashinaabe way”

The landscape

The landscape here of course is remote and raw. The land is what you have to live off here and respect. They have mobile phones etc but then everything starts to stop working. the cut off community becomes even more so, but this time it’s neither wanted nor welcomed.

The Ashinaabe lake is in northern Ontario and it’s vague as to where exactly the story takes place. However the fictional towns of Gibson and Everton Mills are where some have moved for jobs. Here, there is less competition however and still many skilled workers needed. Everyone hunts for food, lives a simple life, but uses nature ,gives back and doesn’t abuse it like some.

The author is from The Wasauking First Nation however and this is near Parry Sound, also in Ontario. This is illustrated on the map above.

The hydro lines from the a massive dam to the east powers the homes here, but there are plans to decommission the diesel generators which fuel it. That is going to change matters…and now there is no satellite, phones or outside contact. Then the storm comes.

Booktrailer Review

Susan: @thebooktrailer

I am always fascinated and interested in reading about Canada’s First Nations communities. I read so many books when in the country and visited as many places as i could to find about their way of life,culture and to learn from them. This book does that and more by blending a really tense story, with great characters and a text peppered with Ashinaabe words. It all makes for one interesting tapestry of a story and I was enthralled throughout.

This book turns a lot of things on their heads. What happens when the white people, the outsiders come into this story? What do the First nations do and how do they cope with their new struggles? Now they are the ones who can help others..