93 pages • 3 hours read
Moon of the Crusted Snow
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Part 2, Chapters 22-26Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Biboon: Winter”
Part 2, Chapter 22 Summary
Evan visits elder Aileen to make sure she has enough supplies and her fire is stoked. Aileen asks Evan how he and Nicole are doing. Evan feels guilty that Nicole is largely stuck at home, taking care of the kids and planning what to do if the power outage is permanent. Aileen, a member of the last generation of the community who grew up fluently speaking Anishinaabe and practicing the traditional ways, suggests Evan spend time with Nicole.
Aileen is fond of imparting wisdom and stories to the people who visit her. Now that modern infrastructure has failed, knowledge of the old ways of living is invaluable. She reminds Evan that, though it seems the world is ending, the Anishinaabe world ended long ago, when the Zhaagnaash, white people, forced them from their ancestral lands. Their world ended again when their children were taken away by the government for reeducation. Aileen reminds him that their people adapted to life in the freezing north; they will learn to adapt again.
Evan leaves Aileen’s house on foot. Plowing ceased when the fuel supply ran out; even the town’s diesel generator is offline now, with only a small amount of diesel left for one last emergency use. The tribal administration had effectively dissolved; their only function now is to distribute food. Terry remains as a figurehead to some, but most of the community has learned to rely on Walter, who, in turn, relies on Evan, Isaiah, and Tyler. Other members of the community have banded together with Justin Scott. The shifting alliances make Evan uneasy.
As Evan walks, he takes notice of the crust of frozen snow resting atop the powdery snow on the ground. He struggles to remember the Anishinaabe name for this: Onaabenii Giizis, the coldest part of winter, where the cold freezes even the snow itself.
By now, deaths in the community are the only milestone to mark the passage of time. Evan, Tyler, and Isaiah are the community’s “makeshift undertakers” (153). Evan meets his friends at the top of a hill; they are bickering about hockey and towing the body of an elder, Johnny Meegis, who likely died due to a combination of medical problems. They take him to the “makeshift morgue” that “housed twenty-one bodies lined neatly in three rows” (155). Starting with Tara and Jenna, they started moving bodies here for the community to bury during the spring thaw. Jacob McCloud hanged himself due to guilt over the girls’ death. His cousin, Dion, committed suicide soon after. Cam and Sydney are reluctant to talk about the night the girls died; Scott has allies throughout the village.
Evan and his friends lay Johnny in the morgue, completing another row of bodies.
Part 2, Chapter 23 Summary
On a relatively mild, sunny day, Nicole bundles up Maiingan and Nangohns for a walk, towing them in a wagon. Along the way, they come upon Meghan Connor, checking on rabbit snares. Meghan is the sole woman in the group of refugees whose leader Scott murdered. After the incident, Terry and Walter felt obliged to take the rest of the group in. Meghan, her husband, Brad, and Alex Richer moved into Walter’s basement until they could find more permanent housing.
Meghan looks the worse for wear as she and Nicole converse. She looks malnourished and tired. Meghan reveals that their group has been mistreated by Scott, but her husband has completely fallen in line. She catches Scott staring at her sometimes; she feels threatened by him. Nicole comforts Meghan, who cries as she explains the situation. She tells Nicole that Scott claims to have a plan for food; while everyone else grows thinner and thinner, he seems to be getting bigger somehow.
Nicole’s apprehension grows. Meghan declines her offer to come to Nicole’s house for tea; she wants to keep checking snares. Nicole decides it is best to go back home.
Part 2, Chapter 24 Summary
Home delivery of rations ended two months ago with the last of the diesel. Now, Terry presides over the distribution of canned goods every Tuesday, aided by Evan, Isaiah, and Tyler.
Sydney is the first to come for rations. Evan asks after his nephew; Sydney says they are staying with her parents full-time now. She wanted to be away from Scott and his followers, with whom Cam now lives. Sydney says Evan should talk to him. Sydney leaves, leaving Evan perplexed with Cam’s behavior.
Sydney’s visit reminds Isaiah that he saw Nick walking down the road the other day. He tells Evan that Nick looked gaunt and malnourished. Nick told Isaiah that he had just run into Scott, who questioned him about his hunger and tried to get him to join him. Evan and Isaiah wonder what Scott is planning, where he is getting food, and what he is charging for it.
Part 2, Chapter 25 Summary
After dinner one night, at Dan and Patricia’s home, the family gathers to listen to Dan tell a folktale to his grandchildren. The story involves the trickster figure, Nanabush, greedily catching more geese than he can eat. Nanabush puts the geese in his campfire to cook and tells his diiyosh (his rear end) to wake him when the geese are cooked. His diiyosh does not wake him, so Nanabush sits in the fire to punish it. Of course, this hurts Nanabush. He slides his rear on rocks to put out the flame; the bits of skin that came off on the rocks became lichen. Maiingan correctly guesses that the moral of the story is not to be greedy. Evan adds that it also means one should always be ready for winter.
Part 2, Chapter 26 Summary
Evan and his friends help Terry with another week’s food distribution. Tensions in the community are steadily growing as people grow tired of the monotonous rotation of canned goods. Terry, unable to face the constant hard decisions he must make, has handed much of the control over to Walter and the other members of the council. They hand out cans based on their own assessment of families’ needs; families with children take priority. The councilors are suspicious that some are abusing the handouts, which will not last forever.
The food line fills up much quicker than most weeks, causing Evan to wonder what kind of rumors are circulating. A fight breaks out in line between Evan’s cousin and Tyler’s brother; Tyler moves in to break it up. Seeing blood on his cousin’s face causes Evan to lose control. He enters the fray, tackling Tyler and knocking the wind out of him.
Four gunshots into the air break up the scuffle and announce Scott’s arrival, along with Brad Connor. Scott goes to see Terry and the elders inside. Scott leans in toward Terry. In a low voice, he warns Terry that he is losing control of the situation. He tells him he knows where they can find an alternate food source.
Part 2, Chapters 22-26 Analysis
Throughout the winter, Scott periodically hints at an alternative food source. For example, he tells Terry, “I know where we can find something else to eat, and I think you know what I mean” (182). According to Meghan, he has dropped many such hints. Scott has acted as a polluting influence on the reservation, beginning with the night that Jenna and Tara Jones died. Evan knows that “word trickled through the rez that Scott somehow got hostile that night,” but Cam and Sydney are evasive about the topic, and “Scott had allies on the rez now and it was hard to get answers” (156). Meghan Connor shows obvious signs of psychological, if not physical, abuse when she runs into Nicole, indicating that things are not well in Scott’s camp. She tells Nicole, “He just…he orders us around. He threatens us. And the worst part is, Brad has totally fallen in line. […] And sometimes I catch Scott staring at me. It really creeps me out. I’m worried he’s gonna…” (161). Scott uses intimidation to control his group of cronies, and though Meghan does not directly state it, she is the only woman in the group and fears sexual violence from Scott.
To Evan’s horror, Cam joins Scott’s group as the winter wears on. In this way, as in other instances, Cam is Evan’s foil. While Evan is hardworking and enterprising, Cam prefers playing video games to holding a job. Where Evan is a devoted family man, Cam essentially abandons his partner and their son for the type of safety promised by Scott’s strongman Leadership.
Death plagues the community this winter, with one death seeming to precipitate another. Tara’s and Jenna’s deaths cause Jacob McCloud to hang himself out of survivor’s guilt; his cousin, Dion, shoots himself soon after. Rice writes, “One suicide often led to another among the young people, and the compounding tragedies squeezed the stammering heart of the reserve” (156). This is a ripple effect of the generational trauma due to cultural erasure and genocide that led the band to ban alcohol to stave off the self-destruction of substance abuse. The theme of Surviving an Apocalypse is familiar to Evan’s people; they have lived through it before and are still living through it, according to Aileen. She reassures Evan that, despite their grim situation, the Anishinaabeg will survive this “apocalypse” as well.
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