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.
Themes
The Strength of Found Families
Lost in the Barrens is a novel of found families. Jamie, Awasin, and Peetyuk are strangers who become friends who become brothers. Jamie is an orphan, Awasin is a chief’s son, and Peetyuk is a boy with two families. Their status and positions couldn’t be more different, yet through their trials in the Barrens, the boys become family. They form bonds of brotherhood that unite them, outlasting their harrowing trials and return journey. Lost in the Barrens demonstrates the power of human connection to transcend traditional structures and shows how survival depends on relying on one another.
After only a year with Uncle Angus, Jamie has found a best friend in the son of Alphonse, the Cree leader and his uncle’s hunting companion: “It was only natural that Alphonse’s son, Awasin, should become almost a brother to young Jamie” (3). Awasin teaches him many things, and Jamie listens and respects the boy’s knowledge. Jamie offers Awasin adventure and rebellion, traits that bring them adventure and fun.
The two boys rely on one another’s skills while surviving for six months in the Barrens of northern Canada. They are opposites in many ways. Awasin is cautious and practical while Jamie is brash, emotional, and creative. They survive because they recognize their differences and celebrate and elevate these opposing parts of the other. The delicate balance their temperaments offer creates for a well-rounded collection of traits and abilities.
In the middle of the Barrens at their most desperate hour, the boys find an abandoned igloo and crawl inside. The structure saves their lives. Soon a boy named Peetyuk arrives at his igloo and is startled to find two boys already inside. Upon seeing Peetyuk, Awasin prepares to shoot. Jamie knocks his companion down and pursues the escaping Peetyuk: “‘Friends!’ Jamie cried desperately. ‘Don’t go! We’re friends!’” (138). Peetyuk’s structure saved their lives. Jamie saves Peetyuk’s life, and in return, Peetyuk takes the boys to his family’s camp, ultimately resulting in Jamie and Awasin’s return to their home. Alphonse, in gratitude for Peetyuk’s actions, offers him a home and calls him a son: “‘Today my son came back from the shadow world,’ [Alphonse] said. ‘I know a great happiness because of this. It is the greater happiness because he has brought me yet another son’” (147). At last, Peetyuk goes to live with Jamie and his uncle. Angus says, “‘And as for you, Peetyuk, you’ll come and live with us as long as you will stay.’ So it was arranged, and for some years to come Jamie and Peetyuk lived together almost as brothers” (147). Here the repeated exchanges of aid, of life-saving assistance, result in a continuous and symbiotic relationship among the three boys.
The Paradox of Killing to Live
Awasin and Jamie understand that they must kill to survive. They rely on meat for food, clothing, shelter, and tools. With Awasin’s knowledge, they use every piece of every animal they kill, leaving nothing to waste. Despite this knowledge and the care they show in using everything they kill, the boys feel deep sadness at the prospect of killing and a numb depression immediately afterward. This reveals the paradox of killing to live, a visceral reaction to the reality that they must prioritize their own survival over the survival of the beasts they encounter in the wild.
As the does advance into the killing field with their fawns, Jamie “felt a sensation of revolt against killing the approaching deer. They were so tame, so magnificent, […] he hated the prospect of the slaughter. ‘Do we have to kill the does?’ he whispered urgently. ‘What’ll happen to their fawns?’” (62). His deep empathy connects Jamie to the animals of the wild. It marks Jamie as innocent, as capable of feeling as well as rationalizing. The boys will die without the meat, skins, and tools the deer provide. Still, their hearts are heavy. When the shooting is done, “Awasin put down his rifle and turned away. Jamie knew how Awasin felt. For this was slaughter” (62). The boys understand that their rifles make the rapid, mass killing of the animals unnatural. At the same time, they have no choice, They are reviled by their actions. Again the paradox of killing to survive confronts the boys, and they are ill from it.
When Otanak the fawn is killed by wolves, Jamie is sad and angry. He believes his fawn was murdered by the wolves, but Awasin has another perspective: “‘Wolves have to eat. What difference is there between their killing the fawn and our killing a dozen does?’ Jamie had no answer for that, and as he thought about it he could see the justice in what Awasin said” (111). Jamie is beginning to understand the paradox, though the loss of life continues to hurt him emotionally.
Weeks after the does, the bucks arrive with the snow, and Awasin and Jamie shoot 47 caribou at close range. Afterward, “[t]he reaction from the slaughter was so great that they did not even talk of preparing the meat they had killed. They had seen too much blood that day, and too much death” (83). At last, they are able to move, having been stunned by the slaughter and their role in it. Awasin says, “If we let those deer go to waste now we’ll be no better than murderers.” (83). Again the boys understand that killing to survive is one thing that can be rationalized, despite the moral and emotional grief. Killing and letting the animals go to waste is equal to murder. Here, the boys are again confronted by the paradox of killing to live and have built boundaries around killing. Although the paradox remains, the boys have made uneasy peace with killing to live.
Living in Harmony With Nature
Throughout the six-month survival ordeal in the Barrens of northern Canada, Jamie slowly learns something about survival that makes the difference between life and death for the boys. Initially, Jamie is headstrong and bold, as described by Denikazi, “[a] fool […] but a brave fool” (21). Jamie brazenly steals a canoe and convinces Awasin to sneak away with him to see the Great Stone House. This results in the canoe crash that strands them in the Barrens. Jamie did not respect the awesome power of nature, or the dangers Denikazi warned them of alone on the lake. Jamie believed he could bulldoze his way across nature, bending it to his will, only to find the power of the wilderness unconquerable. Slowly, Jamie learns that survival means learning nature’s moods, and working within them.
Many months later when the boys grow restless in the cabin after surviving blizzards and biting cold, they decide to attempt to cross the Barrens by dogsled when the sun warms the landscape briefly. The boys face sun blindness, lose all their food, and nearly die. Jamie learns the folly of working against nature:
As long as we went along with things the way they were, and never tried to fight against this country, we were all right. But when we set out on this trip south we were standing up to the Barrens and sort of daring them. We were going to bulldoze our way through. And we’re lucky to be still alive! (131).
He suggests they return to Hidden Valley to wait out winter, and work with nature rather than against it.
In response, Awasin explains that this knowledge is inherent in the Indigenous peoples who inhabit the land, but rare among Westerners: “Most of them [white men] think they can beat the northland in any fight. […] My people know differently. […] If you fight against the spirits of the north you will always lose.” (131)
In Chapter 24, Jamie reiterates the importance of working with nature, rather than trying to conquer it. He states that “[t]he Eskimos knew that they must always travel with the forces of the land—and never fight against them” (144). The Inuit are not threatened by nature, because they have learned to work within the forces of nature, and to thrive.
Related Titles
By Farley Mowat
