Moon of the Crusted Snow (2018) by Waubgeshig Rice

 Audiobook Review

Moon of the Crusted Snow (2018)

by Waubeshig Rice

  I think I discovered this book via the "recommended" tab in the Libby library app- which is pretty good if you are reading books in translation or literary fiction.  Moon of the Crusted Snow is a typical end of the world type book with the exception of the perspective, which is that of a Anishinabbe community living in northern Canada (not far northern Canada, just regular.) The protagonist is Evan Whitesky, a regular joe type who lives and works in his native village, a place relatively recently connected to the modern world via the wonders of the internet and power from a nearby hydroelectric project.  Evan and his tribe/band first know something is wrong when the cable goes out, then the power.  Winter is setting in, and deliveries from the outside world have ceased, when confirmation finally arrives from two residents attending college in the nearest patch of so-called "Civilization."

  Of all the many works of post-apocalyptic fiction I've read, I would be hard pressed to name another volume that is so low-stakes.  One of the funniest moments in the entire book comes when one of the village elders asks Whitesky to explain this term "apocalypse" means that the young people are bandying about, and when he defines it, she laughs and says that her people/his people have been through at least two others, the first when they were moved north, the second when the Canadians took their children away to Indian schools.  

  Danger arrives in the form of a white survivalist/homesteader type who follows the tracks of the returning college students, and the drama is in the form of the dwindling food reserves the tribe has socked away for just such an occasion.