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
That evening, a blustery snowstorm arrives; people scurry around, shoveling snow and gathering wood. Maiingan watches the community’s maintenance workers ploughing the roads, which are barely visible from the house. Still, Maiingan waves in case Evan is passing by in one of the plough trucks. Moose stew simmers on the stove—Evan and Nicole have invited the snow plough workers to drop by for a comforting meal after their night in the snow.
As the winter’s first blizzard sets in, Evan and Nicole continue to embrace their community-oriented values—they clearly believe that helping others is crucial for the reservation’s collective well-being. Nicole wants to look after the volunteers by feeding them, knowing that they’ll prove crucial in keeping the community functioning as the winter sets in.
Themes
Despite their hardships, “the Anishinaabe spirit of community […] prevail[s]” in times of hard work, like when a blizzard blows through. The community has preserved for generations, passing down skills needed to survive the harsh northern winters in this remote terrain. Nicole reads the children stories from an Anishinaabe book called Jidmoo Miinwaa Goongwaas and puts more wood into the stove, telling the children that everything will be all right.
Rice emphasizes the importance of community-oriented values by stressing that the Anishinaabe have survived for generations by pitching in and supporting one another. They do so both practically (in selfless acts like ploughing the roads and sharing food) and emotionally (in reassuring one another that things will be alright).
Themes
