Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Moon of the Crusted Snow, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Technology, Society, and Survival
Colonialism, Oppression, and Trauma
Selfishness vs. Selflessness
Gender, Power, and Wisdom
Summary
Analysis
The council members are gathered around a table in the community’s board room, along with Evan, Isaiah, Tyler, Kevin, Nick, and their parents. The room glows pink from the setting sun, and Terry tells everyone that they’re safe here. The situation is worse than they thought, but they know how to survive harsh northern winters. Nick explains that a blackout happened in Gibson, and the next day, he walked downtown to see what happened. Cars were crowding gas stations and grocery stores. The college staff had no news about the outage; each day, they told the students to be patient.
As Nick describes the situation in Gibson, he emphasizes that people began panicking because they grew impatient without news about the blackout. This again suggests that many people in modern society (like the people in Gibson) have grown overly dependent on technology’s instant gratification—they’ve forgotten how to be patient amid uncertainty, which weakens their emotional resilience in times of crisis.
Themes
After a few days, Nick and Kevin ventured off campus to find that the town was deserted. They heard noises in the grocery store and saw a riot going on inside; people were fighting and bleeding. Nick and Kevin then returned to campus and made plans to come back to the reservation. Over the next few days, they quietly stole gas from abandoned cars and hid as much food as they could find. Then, they had to plan a route to the reservation, knowing that the roads were buried deep under the snow. The situation at the college deteriorated: security and staff left, and students smashed the cafeteria’s windows and begged one another for food.
Nick and Kevin draw on their Anishinaabe values to remain calm, be patient, plan a successful survival-strategy. Other youths, however, have no idea how to survive without power—they don’t even know how to get food if it’s not served to them in the cafeteria. This contrast suggests that modern society’s infrastructure has disconnected many people from the knowledge that they can survive in nature if they stay calm and proactive, as Nick and Kevin do.
Themes
Nick and Kevin miraculously found two snowmobiles and more gas in the maintenance building, and they prepared everything. They covered their snow tracks and waited. That night, students started breaking into one another’s rooms. One student overdosed in his room. Students also began abandoning campus to die the snow. When Nick and Kevin crept back to the maintenance building, two guys approached and tackled Nick, trying to kill him. Kevin had to smash the guys’ heads with a hammer. Then, they rode off. Nick’s mother starts crying, but Terry soothes the room with a prayer. Terry is eerily calm, and he sends the boys home to rest, telling everyone to keep the news to themselves until the council figures out a plan.
The students quickly become disoriented without phones and internet to tell them what’s going on. Within a mere few days, students begin dying because they feel helplessly isolated—and even suicidal. Dependence on technology clearly weakens emotional coping skills once that technology is no longer available. In stark contrast, Terry’s indigenous prayer soothes the room and helps him remain calm, suggesting that longstanding traditions (which don’t demand complex technology) bolster emotional resolve, while technological infrastructure weakens it.
Themes
