The River

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 6

Chapters 7-12

Chapters 13-18

Chapter 19-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Background

Authorial Context: Peter Heller

The River is the fourth of six novels by Peter Heller; other novels include The Dog Stars (2012) and The Painter (2014). He’s also the author of four books of nonfiction. Heller is a freelance writer and has been a contributor to magazines such as Outside and Men’s Journal. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and was drawn to both the outdoors and literary pursuits.

In an interview with Martin Wolk, Heller named Ernest Hemingway as one of his earliest influences, which is evident in this novel’s descriptions of nature, the river, and fishing, which have a tone and style similar to Hemingway’s. In addition, Heller noted that the novel (like many of Hemingway’s works) contains “much autobiography”: He told Wolk that the novel’s main characters, “Jack and Wynn, meet on a freshman orientation hike at Dartmouth, just as Heller met his own best friend decades ago” and adds that “Wynn, an artist and gentle giant, is based on” his friend, while the author is more like Jack, though not quite as hard-nosed (Wolk, Martin. “Reading the Northwest: Peter Heller’s ‘The River’ Carries the Reader on a Swift Current of Adventure.” The Spokesman Review, 2 June 2019).

The novel’s vivid, highly detailed descriptions of the forest fire are based on Heller’s encounter with a forest fire in 1994 in Colorado. Heller also drew on his experience paddling some of the world’s most dangerous rivers. He was one of a pair who were the first to kayak the Muk Su in Tajikistan, a river once known as the “Everest of Rivers.” Like Jack in the novel, Heller lives in Colorado (“About.” Peter Heller).

Geographic Context: The Canadian Wilderness

The novel takes place in northern Canada, in the province of Ontario, just south of Hudson Bay and the arctic circle. According to Martin Wolk, “The novel’s setting is closely based on the Winisk River in northern Ontario, which Heller ran years ago on assignment for a magazine” (“Reading the Northwest: Peter Heller’s ‘The River’ Carries the Reader on a Swift Current of Adventure”). The area is remote and only occasionally accessible by seasonal roads. Along the river are only a couple of small Cree (Indigenous) villages. The river traverses an area known as the Canadian Shield, which drops off over a relatively short distance before flattening out as it enters Hudson Bay, which explains the series of rapids and waterfalls that the novel describes. The Winisk traverses Polar Bear National Park, an expansive undeveloped area that restricts travel to certain areas to protect wildlife from human encroachment.

The town that Jack and Wynn desperately try to reach in the novel is likely based on Peawanuck, which doesn’t lie at the terminus of the Winisk where it empties into Hudson Bay. A town once existed there but was entirely destroyed in a flood, and the residents rebuilt a community further upstream, on higher ground. The town’s population is less than 200 and primarily Cree. The climate in the area is what one might expect from a northern region. It snows in September, and the temperature in Peawanuck has been known to drop to -50 degrees Fahrenheit. Jack and Wynn begin their expedition toward the end of summer, just as autumn is beginning.