Review of MOON OF THE CRUSTED SNOW by Waubgeshig Rice

3.5 Stars

In a small, remote Anishinaabe community, winter is about to begin when, one by one, all communication and power grids are lost.  Initially there is no great worry because outages are common; however, as time passes, anxiety rises, especially when the community learns about society collapsing in the outside world.  The food supply becomes a major concern, and panic starts to build.  When a white man arrives, he changes the dynamics:   power struggles begin.  Will the people be able to survive the long winter?

Most of the novel is narrated from the perspective of Evan Whitesky, a thoughtful young man who is skilled in the traditional Anishinaabe way of life; in the opening scene, he is hunting to provide food for his family.  Evan is the one fully developed character.  He is a man of integrity.  His major concern is the welfare of his family, but he also tries to help maintain order in the community and ensure that vulnerable people receive basic needs.  Though he has many positive qualities, he is not perfect:  though he understands the negative impact alcohol has had on his people, he drinks even knowing he will inevitably experience “his usual conflicted morning-after emotions of guilt and defiance.”

Development of other characters is missing.  There is little differentiation so it’s easy to think of the one-dimensional characters only in terms of labels like the best friend, the co-worker, and the well-intentioned leader.  Some development of Justin Scott would have been useful because his motives remain unknown.  Why does he choose to be a disruptor?  Is he just supposed to be a representative of the evil white man who has interfered and brought violence and destruction to Indigenous peoples?

Some characters are just dropped into the narrative without explanation.  For example, a man named Dave Meegis shows up in Chapter 15 and pores over “invoices, charts, and documents about energy consumption.”  Who is he?  Is he a band councillor?  All we know is that, given his surname, he must be related to the chief.  Later in Chapter 21, a sentence begins with “The woman screamed . . . ” but there has been no previous mention of a woman being present. 

There is a great deal of exposition in the book so I often had the impression that the author was more concerned with showcasing Anishinaabe culture and criticizing colonialism than with creating a work of fiction with literary qualities.  For example, “As he took from the earth, he gave back.  It was the Anishinaabe way, as he understood it” and “he planned to give a lot of the meat away.  It was the community way” and “hunting, fishing, and living on the land was Anishinaabe custom.”  The ritual of smudging is explained as “an integral part of Anishinaabe spirituality.  It represented a cleansing of the spirit, and the ceremony was believed to clear the air of negativity.”  Then the author feels compelled to give some history:  “This protocol had once been forbidden, outlawed by the government and shunned by the church.  When the ancestors of these Anishinaabe people were forced to settle in this unfamiliar land, distant from their traditional home near the Great Lakes, their culture withered under the pressure of the incomers’ Christianity.  The white authorities displaced them far to the north to make way for towns and cities.”  Of course, I understand the need to explain this culture and history to non-Indigenous readers who might have little knowledge of either. 

There is too much telling and not enough showing.  For instance, the power struggles, a main conflict in the second part of the novel, are not directly shown.  We are told that Jordan Scott causes divisiveness but we are not shown how he does so.  How can someone convince people to violate a strong moral code?  Suspense is certainly diminished because we hear about events instead of see events.   

The theme of the novel is that Indigenous people have been in survival mode since the arrival of whites and they will continue to survive if they live according to their traditional ways.  An elder points out, “’Our world isn’t ending.  It already ended.  It ended when the Zhaagnaash come into our original home down south on that bay and took it from us.  That was our world.  When the Zhaagnaash cut down all the trees and fished all the fish and forced us out of there, that’s when our world ended. . . . But then they followed us up here and started taking our children away from us!  That’s when our world ended again.  And that wasn’t the last time.’”  Those like Evan’s brother who have adopted white values and become too reliant on the ways of the whites have the most difficulty trying to survive, whereas those like Evan who live off the land by hunting, fishing, and trapping, and work together in “the Anishinaabe spirit of community” are more successful.  “The collapse of the white man’s modern systems” may in fact lead to a rebirth of “new life nestled deep in the heart of Anishinaabe.”

In many ways, this book reads like Young Adult fiction.  It is written in a straightforward style with unadorned prose.  It is informative about First Nations culture and history which Canadians, especially the youth, need to learn about.  The novel is not of exceptional literary quality but it is worth reading because it provides a new perspective.