53 pages • 1 hour read
Farley MowatLost In The Barrens
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1956A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “The Rapid!”
The boys cook the duck over a fire and survey the area, finding it free of Inuit, but in the distance they see ravens. Awasin explains that the ravens mean deer, so the hunt can begin soon. The boys have different ideas about their next steps. Jamie wants to continue to the Great Stone House, and then to join the hunt at Deer Hill. Awasin is more reserved, preferring to return to the beach where Denikazi told them to wait. At last, they agree to reach the end of the lake but go no further.
However, a fierce wind propels the canoe down the lake and into a stream where the boys are captured by rapids. Jamie is flung from the canoe and knocked unconscious while Awasin escapes with cuts and bruises, leaping free as the canoe is shattered. Awasin pulls Jamie from the water, then returns and rescues the remains of the canoe. When both are safe, he passes out on the shore.
An illustration accompanies the chapter title, featuring Jamie falling from the canoe as Awasin attempts to steady it.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Alone in the Wilderness”
Jamie and Awasin are awakened by a shrieking hawk. Jamie is scared when he cannot find Awasin, who pops up from behind a ledge and laughs. Jamie thinks his leg is broken, and he is scared and near tears while Awasin seems unaffected by the seriousness of their accident, Jamie’s injury, and the loss of their canoe. Awasin examines Jamie and finds his leg badly bruised, but not broken. They sleep under the broken canoe.
In the morning, Awasin goes scouting and hunting and returns with ground squirrels he snared with a makeshift trap. In the distance, he spots the Great Stone House.
An illustration accompanies the chapter title, featuring a caribou skull.
Chapter 9 Summary: “The Kayaks on the Lake”
Awasin makes a fire drill out of scraps from the canoe and sticks, and soon has a fire going. As they eat the squirrels, Jamie explains that Awasin should leave him, walk to the far end of the lake and try to meet the Denésuliné who were likely, by now, looking for them. Awasin leaves, and Jamie is alone and scared.
After only a few hours, Awasin runs back into camp and announces that the Inuit are on the lake and coming their way. They decide to hide in the Great Stone House and quickly move their gear and themselves into place. Jamie realizes that with Inuit on the lake, the Denésuliné will not risk coming after the boys.
The narrative shifts to Etzanni and Telie-kwazie, the two men Denikazi left in charge of Jamie and Awasin, as they pursue the boys down the lake. When the two men spot Inuit on the lake, they turn back, go south past The Killing Place, and believe instinctively that the boys are dead.
Awasin and Jamie are hungry, so they return to the water to fish, leaving the Great Stone House behind. Awasin catches a massive trout, four-feet long and over 40 pounds. They eat until they are full, then smoke the rest of the fish.
An illustration accompanies the chapter title, featuring Awasin fishing.
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Great Stone House”
The boys know they cannot walk south and don’t know the way. Hoping to intercept him on the hunt, they go to Deer Hill and look for signs of Denikazi. Awasin goes fishing for more food to preserve for the journey while Jamie explores the house, waiting for his leg to heal. Inside the structure, he finds a small cave and climbs inside. He finds a massive sword and a helmet with horns and knows that the Vikings built the Great Stone House as a fort.
Jamie calls for Awasin, who believes the Inuit have returned. He grabs the rifle and nearly shoots a horned beast before realizing it is Jamie. The boys go back to the cave and Jamie crawls in and passes objects out into the sunlight. Jamie suggests they sell the valuable artifacts. After two artifacts, Jamie passes out something that Awasin realizes is a human skull. They are desecrating a Viking grave. They quickly pack up and flee, with Jamie pocketing a slab of metal from the cave that he believes is a relic depicting the story of the Viking’s fort.
An illustration accompanies the chapter title, featuring Jamie standing near the Great Stone House.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Flight to the West”
The boys walk for three days before Jamie can go no longer with his hurt leg. They stop for a day, then continue, but the weather fouls and they find themselves miserable and depressed. At their lowest moment, they spot deer in the plains near Deer Hill. Awasin grabs a rifle and pursues the caribou while Jamie sits sullen and injured. Awasin kills a deer, and they cook steaks and eat. In the morning, they find the river that Denikazi said he would use to transport the deer meat. They will wait to intercept Denikazi as he heads south.
Unknown to the boys, Denikazi has killed as many deer as they could quickly preserve and carry. They arrived at the chain of lakes and made camp. However, during the night, one of the men believes they see something in the distance and, fearing Inuit, they flee in their canoes and paddle right past Awasin and Jamie, asleep on the shore beside a dead fire.
An illustration accompanies the chapter title. It features Jamie with a makeshift crutch carrying the rifle and Awasin carrying a dead deer.
Chapter 12 Summary: “River of the Frozen Lake”
Jamie and Awasin are unaware that Denikazi and his men passed them in the night. In the distance they spot the great herds stretched across the miles, and the river is filled with deer hair. As the boys walk along the shore, they find a cache of food and know Denikazi has not passed them by. They wait another day with no sign of rescue. Then they walk north, looking for the camp. When they spot a fire in the distance, Jamie shoots of several rounds from the rifle, but the fire is extinguished. They decide to wait until morning to join Denikazi at his camp, knowing how afraid they are of the Inuit.
The next day they cannot find the camp, but they find the area where Denikazi’s men killed and prepared the deer, and they know they have missed their chance to return home with the Denésuliné. Desperation settles over the boys, who know winter is coming and they cannot walk the hundreds of miles south to safety. Looking at the Viking relic, Jamie realizes that they will have to survive the winter in the Barrens, and Awasin agrees. They are excited and encouraged at the prospect of returning to Cree territory as heroes the following spring.
An illustration accompanies the chapter title, featuring a small herd of caribou in a field.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Plans and Preparations”
The boys are determined to survive the winter in the Barrens. They take inventory of their gear and decide to wait to hunt until the upcoming buck migration. They set up behind stones to kill a few deer for the skins, and Jamie counts thousands of caribou. Jamie laments having to kill does with their fawns still young. Awasin kills nine does, feeling sick as he does the killing. They skin the does and prepare the meat, though a little fawn lingers nearby. By the end of the day they have “[n]ine skins; enough meat to make a hundred pounds of ‘jerky,’ or dry meat; supplies of sinew thread and plenty of fresh meat for daily use. Also, they had acquired a friend” (65). At night, they have a makeshift tent, and the fawn joins them inside, lying beside Awasin.
An illustration accompanies the chapter title, featuring the boys’ surviving equipment.
Chapters 7-13 Analysis
Layered across the setting is a mysticism that fascinates Jamie. References to Indigenous deities appear in the text, often without explanation. For example, Denikazi prays to “ancient gods” atop a hill near the most northern camp before crossing into Inuit territory (20). This he does out of anxiety and fear as well as in hopes of a bountiful hunt and safe return to his starving people. Later, he advises the boys to leave the southern camp if the Denésuliné don’t return, and to flee “as if the devil Wendigo was on your heels” (23).
Later, upon finding the Hidden Valley, Awasin references a deity: “‘My people would say that Manitou [life force] was with us,’ Awasin said quietly. It was a solemn moment” (81). Jamie does not ask questions about Awasin’s or Denikazi’s moments of solemn reflection and prayer, and he is uncharacteristically solemn in the face of their genuflection.
The solemnness inspired by Awasin’s moment of religious reflection appears again in how the boys react to death and dying. Although the two teenage boys are often busy trying to one-up the other in displays of manliness meant to impress the other, when it comes to killing and death, the boys are remarkably respectful and introspective. There are no macho displays, no bragging about kills, no boasting. In the face of death, the boys are silent. After killing the does, a “fawn came running up. Ungainly and awkward, it scampered along behind him and made Jamie feel even more guilty about the slaughter of the does” (64). Jamie is humbled by the appearance of the fawn, which he and Awasin soon adopt and care for out of guilt and an acceptance of their responsibility for killing its mother. As Awasin explains: “Since I killed its mother I have to be its foster father now” (65). They name the fawn Otanak, which “means the backward one—the one who got left behind” and they care for the fawn until its death (81).
Due to the arrival of guns in the Barrens, hunting the caribou has turned to slaughter: “Awasin put down his rifle and turned away. Jamie knew how Awasin felt. For this was slaughter. It was like shooting cows in a barnyard, Jamie thought” (63). The boys understand that the slaughter is unnatural and regret The Paradox of Killing to Live. After shooting dozens of bucks, the boys stand in awe of the beauty and wonder of the massive herd: “Never, while they lived, would they forget this day” (85). This demonstrates their respect for nature as juxtaposed to the unnatural killing that took place and their role in it.
Guns are a staple in the northern woods and plains of remote Canada. It is a need for ammunition for their guns that drives the Denésuliné leader Denikazi to visit the Cree. Without the ammo for the guns, they cannot hunt enough caribou to survive the winter. The Cree bought the guns and ammo by trading furs in The Pas with traders and merchants. To the extreme north, the Inuit also have guns. These weapons have replaced traditional weaponry because they are easier to use, result in faster kills and have more killing power. Guns have been staples in Indigenous communities for so long that Awasin says he does not know how to make a bow and arrows: “‘You see,’ he explained, ‘my people haven’t used bows for fifty years—not since they got guns. Sometimes we boys used to make them just for fun but they never worked. It’s funny you should know how when we’ve forgotten’” (107).
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