Colonialism, Oppression, and Trauma Theme Analysis

Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow is an allegory for First Nation people’s experiences under colonial oppression. Set on a remote Anishinaabe reservation in Northern Canada, the plot revolves around a widespread power outage that throws the region into chaos during a brutally frigid winter. Outsiders begin seeking refuge on the isolated reservation, but they soon exploit the Anishinaabe’s hospitality, incite violence, and cause suffering—prompting the Anishinaabe to flee. The Anishinaabe community’s spiritual guide, Aileen Jones, suggests that the story’s events mirror colonialism’s violence and destruction. She thinks that the Anishinaabe people’s “world ended” many times over under colonial oppression, yet they managed to survive and rebuild their culture each time the “Zhagnaash [white person]” targeted them. In the book’s epilogue, the Anishinaabe survivors push on with sad resilience to rebuild their lives, settling in remote woodland territory to avoid more outsiders. This suggests that modern First Nations cultures are determined to survive, but that they are haunted by past oppression and remain wary of experiencing more oppression in the future.

Protagonist Evan Whitesky, a young Anishinaabe man, bitterly reflects on the culture his people lost under colonialism. After European settlers colonized the Americas, First Nations people were forced to abandon many of their own customs and adopt those of the settlers instead. In the modern day, Evan frequently struggles to remember words in his native language, Anishinaabemowin, noting that historical bans on native languages and the forced schooling of earlier generations steered First Nations people toward speaking English. Only a few people with a full command of the Anishinaabe’s native language remain alive today. When the community’s oldest member Aileen dies, her knowledge of the native language and many traditional customs die with her. Evan’s mourning is compounded because he’s hasn’t just lost Aileen—he’s also lost the last link to many of his culture’s traditions. In this way, Evan’s grief parallels the cultural losses that First Nations people suffered under colonialism.

The visitors to Evan’s community cause violence and trauma, prompting the Anishinaabe survivors to flee in order to rebuild their society—a process that mirrors historical colonial oppression in Canada. A heavily armed man named Justin Scott seeks refuge on the reservation during the so-called “apocalypse.” But after he gains the community’s trust, he seizes power and ends up terrorizing the withering community. Scott metaphorically represents historical settlers who disrupted pre-existing First Nations communities. His violent and disruptive actions ultimately drive the Anishinaabe survivors to flee and rebuild their community in more remote territory, much like First Nations people did when Europeans began settling in the Americas. Aileen also explicitly depicts the community’s crisis as an allegory for First Nations people’s historical oppression under colonialism. Aileen says that the “world isn’t ending. It already ended when the Zhagnaash [white person] came into our original home […] and took it away from us,” suggesting that the wintry crisis is just another manifestation of events that happened to First Nations people before. Aileen says “the world ended again” when incoming settlers “followed us up here and took our children away from us,” suggesting that settlers fractured First Nations peoples’ communities for generations—much like Justin fractures the Anishinaabe reservation in the novel.

In the book’s epilogue, the few surviving characters are traumatized but also determined to rebuild their culture anew, representing the outlook of many First Nations people today. Two years after the blackout, the surviving characters leave the reservation because they can’t bear to stay in a place marked by such loss. Rice uses the characters’ sadness to reflect on the pain and loss that still haunts modern-day First Nations people. The story’s surviving characters carry “the bad memories and the sadness” with them, suggesting that First Nations people—like the story’s surviving characters—still experience trauma today, given the painful losses their people suffered under colonialism. The surviving characters head into the woods without looking back, capturing their dogged resilience to survive despite their pain. Rice writes, “they refused to wither completely, and a core of dedicated people had worked tirelessly to create their own settlement away from this town,” capturing First Nations people’s determination to survive and keep their culture alive. The survivors leave the reservation because they “couldn't be certain there wouldn’t be more visitors,” suggesting that their past traumas have also taught First Nations people to be wary of future oppression. Rice leverages the story’s conclusion to reflect on modern First Nations people’s bittersweet outlook: they draw strength from their survival, but they also carry emotional scars from colonialist oppression.