2/15/2021 Friday Reads: December 2020 | The Common

Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow; recommended by Timothy Kleiser

As winter stalks an Anishinaabe reserve in remote northern Ontario, the community is suddenly
and inexplicably cut o from its modern infrastructure. First, televisions go down, followed by
cell phones and landlines. Soon, the reserve plunges into a power blackout and delivery trucks
stop coming. When reports of widespread blackouts and violence arrive from the south,
panicked community members make a run on the remaining groceries and supplies. Council
leaders stru le to maintain order, but the balance of power is tested when a menacing stranger
arrives. Other strangers soon follow, seeking refuge on the reserve. While the remorseless winter
months creep by, supplies dwindle and the body count grows. Mounting tensions divide loyalties
and test values. As desperation takes hold, the Anishinaabe community must make a harrowing
decision.
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2/15/2021 Friday Reads: December 2020 | The Common

Moon of the Crusted Snow is the second novel of Waubgeshig Rice, the Canadian journalist from
Wasauksing First Nation. Fans of post-apocalyptic literature will notice the in uence of seminal
entries in the genre, such as Cormac McCarthy’s e Road and Emily St. John Mandel’s S ation
Eleven. Yet unlike these novels that are truly post-apocalyptic and thrust their readers into the
throes of survival, Moon of the Crusted Snow begins on the cusp of societal collapse and leads its
readers through the slow burn of social upheaval. In this way, the story is more reminiscent of
William Forstchen’s One Second A er. Yet Moon of the Crusted Snow stands apart by concerning
itself less with individual outcomes and more with the condition of this First Nations band as a
whole. In addition to the narrative, Rice’s focus on the fate of the community is represented
thematically through his various allusions to their knowledge of and commitment to each other
and their land, history, and traditions. e subtext is that such familiarity and commitment
make the First Nations more likely than non-Indigenous inhabitants to survive an apocalypse. As
one elder in the story puts it, “Yes, apocalypse. We’ve had that over and over. But we always
survived. We’re still here. And we’ll still be here, even if the power and the radios don’t come
back on and we never see any white people ever again.”

Overall, this slow-burning thriller is a taut and un inching statement about the power and
necessity of human community. When winter seems unrelenting, pick up this book.

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