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 alarm goes off at 6:30. Evan is still groggy, so Nicole offers to get the kids up. Evan hears the kids chatting and guesses that the television signal is still out. He throws on some clothes, greets his son and daughter warmly, and looks out the window, envying trees and bears because they can hibernate through the harsh winters. Evan sips on hot coffee and checks his phone: there are no notifications. Then, he realizes there’s no cell service, which happens often on the reservation. Contractors from the south only built the phone tower a few years ago, so they could have service while building a dam—now, the people on the reservation use it, though the signal is spotty at best.
Evan doesn’t seem worried, despite the ongoing satellite and cell signal outage. Through Evan’s reflections, Rice reveals that the reservation only went on the grid a few years ago—meaning that many people (especially the older members of the community) are used to living without power. Evan and Nicole’s are obviously comfortable going about their daily lives without power, again showing that they’re not overly dependent on technology.
Themes
Evan chats with the children, explaining that a moose gave himself to the family yesterday, so Evan has lots of work to do today. The kids are eager for their first hunt, which makes Evan reminisce about his years of learning the land before his own first hunt as a child. He didn’t even know about the tobacco ritual back then—not until an elder told him about it many years later. Nicole emerges in jeans and a hoodie as Evan plugs in the sink’s hot water supply to do the dishes, wondering how long the cellphone service will be down.
Evan doesn’t think that the Earth’s ecosystem is his to exploit as he wishes—he emphasizes that the moose gave itself to the family, meaning that he thinks of the moose as a gift from the land. Evan only learned about the tobacco ritual a few years ago, suggesting that many indigenous people don’t know much about their own history. Rice hints here that indigenous traditions have to be revived because they were once suppressed or lost to future generations. The tobacco ritual symbolizes indigenous knowledge and traditions, which have dwindled since First Nations people first experienced colonialist oppression centuries ago.
Themes
Nangohns wants to see the moose; Evan looks warmly at her and gently tells her that it’s not ready yet. Nangohns’s pigtails stick out like antennas, but despite her innocent appearance, she often asks wise and lingering questions. Evan believes that Nangohns carries the wisdom of many generations, and she’ll be a leader one day. Without the blare of the television, the morning is eerily quiet, though nobody seems to mind. Evan watches Nicole with the children, feeling happy that she guides them with patience and respect, just like the teachings he’s learning.
Evan acknowledges Nangohns’s innate intelligence, and he’s confident that she’ll be a leader when she grows up. Nicole is also a leader in this family, guiding her loved ones with her knowledge of indigenous traditions. Together, Evan’s attitudes toward Nangohns and Nicole emphasize the importance of women in their family unit and their culture more broadly. Evan and Nicole continue to adjust easily without the television because they can lean on practices like traditional storytelling, which Nicole uses to entertain the children this morning.
Themes
Nicole takes Maiingan to school. The school is simple and small, but the people on the reservation are happy to finally have a proper building. When Evan and Nicole were young, there was far less infrastructure: they went to school in moldy makeshift rooms connected to diesel generators, which ran on fuel that was trucked in. The community is connected to the grid now, and Evan is happy that things are better for his kids. There’s also a new service road that connects the community to a highway 300 kilometers away, though bad weather still blocks access sometimes.
The reservation’s infrastructure is relatively new, and people living there managed for years without being connected to the power grid—even if things weren’t perfect. Evan’s happiness that his children have better facilities suggests that he has a conflicted perspective about technology: he doesn’t need it to get by, but he’s nonetheless happy about how its conveniences make life easier for his children. Rice suggests here that it’s easy to be seduced by technology’s luxuries—even people like Evan, who are wary about technology, are susceptible to becoming too reliant on it.
Themes
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When Nicole returns, Evan heads into the chilly shed to tackle the moose. He smells the scent of dying leaves and instinctively looks south when he hears an engine in the distance. His friend Isaiah North approaches on a truck. Isaiah has been curious to hear how Evan’s hunt went, but he has no cell service either, so he drove over instead. Evan teases Isaiah about giving him only the paltry back strips of the moose, and Isaiah playfully punches Evan’s shoulder. The two joke lightheartedly as they head in to butcher the moose together.
Evan has cultivated strong survival skills rooted in a close connection to the land and reading the landscape—he can smell the time of year and hear distant noises that warn him of others’ presence. People on the reservation continue to adapt to the communications outage without much fuss. Isaiah simply drives over instead of calling, just as he used to before the local cellphone tower was installed. Isaiah embodies community values: he’s checking in on Evan, and he’s proactively come to help butcher the moose. Similarly, Evan plans to share moose cuts with his friends and family, highlighting his community-oriented thinking.
Themes
