Brian's Winter

“In truth he felt relieved when the food was gone. It had softened him, made him want more and more, and he could tell that he was moving mentally away from the woods, his situation. He started to think in terms of the city again, of hamburgers and malts, and his dreams changed.” 

Brian’s relationship to food changes temporarily when he has access to the food rations from the plane crash. He finds that eating these foods makes it difficult to return to surviving on fish and small game once the rations are gone, and nothing seems to satisfy him for a time. Here, Paulsen’s food motif shows the contrast between having access to grocery stores and restaurants for food, versus harvesting one’s own food from the wilderness. Brian cannot be fully focused on his survival situation because he the foods he cannot have distract him.

“All sounds, any movement went into him, filled his eyes, ears, mind so that he became part of it, and it was then that he noted the change.” 

In the woods, Brian’s senses heighten, and he uses them to understand and react to his surroundings. He’s learned that every small sound and detail is important for survival in nature. His ability to sharply tune in to his surroundings allows him to survive, showing the importance of always listening to and learning from nature. 

“But Brian had become a part of nature, had become a predator, a two-legged wolf. And there was a physics to it, a basic fact, almost a law: For a wolf to live, something else had to die. And for Brian to live it was the same.” 

As much as Brian dislikes killing animals for food, he recognizes that just like the wolf, he cannot survive without it. Brian’s moral scruples about killing highlight one of nature’s great paradoxes: No person or animal can live without the death of other living things. 

“But in reality, the bear was not his primary adversary. Nor was the wolf, nor any animal. Brian had become his own worst enemy because in all the business of hunting, fishing, and surviving he had forgotten the primary rule: Always, always pay attention to what was happening. Everything in nature means something and he had missed the warnings that summer was ending, had in many ways already ended, and what was coming would be the most dangerous thing he had faced since the plane crash.” 

Paulsen uses foreshadowing to give the reader a clue as to the dangers that await Brian with the onset of winter. He also highlights the necessity of taking note of all details in the environment. As Brian fails to notice some of the warning signs of weather changes, Paulsen establishes a tone of foreboding and suspense. 

“Something else he had learned: Do what you can, as you can. Trouble, problems, will come no matter what you do, and you must respond as they come.” 

Brian’s survival depends on his ability to respond to problems as they come. Throughout the novel, Brian responds to obstacles by trying various methods to overcome them. In this way, Paulsen shows the importance of trial and error and an attitude of perseverance. If at first Brian doesn’t succeed, he tries again until he does. 

“Just as bad things could snowball, Brian found that good things could come fast as well. While he was working with the rabbit skin in the cool evening he turned it to get a better angle and the hair brushed his hand and felt warm and he realized he’d found a way to stay warm.” 

Brian acknowledges that many of his discoveries and successes are due to luck. He knows that bad luck and good luck are both a part of surviving in the woods. However, he does not sit idly waiting for luck to strike. Instead, he constantly notices things and thinks practically. He knows that both good luck and sharp intellect are necessary for survival, and takes action to turn ideas into reality, such as making the poncho out of rabbit skins. 

“The doe’s skin was stuck tight to the meat and did not come off with simply pulling at it, the way a rabbit skin did. Bran had to use the tip of the knife to cut the skin away from the flesh, peeling it back a quarter of an inch at a time, and it took him the better part of an hour, working constantly, to get the hide loose, cutting it off the front legs and up the neck to the back of the head.” 

Paulsen details the process of harvesting the deer hide and meat, showing the reader the steps involved in skinning and quartering an animal. Paulsen uses this technique on several occasions, showing the reader details of what Brian does on everything from butchering an animal to sewing hides together for clothing. His inclusion of detailed processes creates a realistic depiction of what it’s like to live off the land, and allows the reader to learn new things alongside Brian. 

“It wasn’t exactly friendship, but soon Brian smiled when he saw the skunk. He named it Betty after deciding that it was a female and that it looked like his aunt, who was low and round and waddled the same way. He looked forward to seeing it.” 

Brian’s daily interactions with the skunk show his need for companionship. He has been alone for about four months at this point, so any kind of friendly interaction, even with a skunk, is something to look forward to. Brian’s rapport with the skunk lends humor and lightheartedness to the novel’s often otherwise grim atmosphere. 

“He had seen pictures of the woods with snow and had seen snow in the park and in the city but this was different. He was in it, inside the snowy scene, and the beautify of it became part of him.”

The splendor of the first snow stuns Brian. Even though he’s seen snow before, this snowy scene stands out, because these are his woods and his home. Brian’s appreciation for nature’s beauty makes it clear that Brian has formed a special connection to nature. Instead of viewing nature as an enemy, he marvels at it. 

“Brian drew the shaft back. A cow, his brain registered, a large cow moose. No antlers. A little spit dripping from the side of her mouth. Brown eyes looking at him but not seeing him, or at least he hoped not. Twenty feet, no more. Six, seven paces at the most. He released the bowstring.” 

Paulsen uses short sentences and fragments to mimic Brian’s thoughts during the moments before his shot at the moose. This technique builds tension, relaying events as if in slow motion and developing the suspense of the moment. 

“He wondered for a moment if she was the same moose that had attacked him earlier in the summer and tried to feel that she was, tried to feel some animosity toward her. But the truth was that killing her made him sad—elated and sad all at once […] He had killed her, ended her life so that he could live, and he felt as bad as he felt good.” 

This quote exemplifies Brian’s feelings about death. As grateful as he feels to have plenty of food to eat, he is also saddened to take the life of a beautiful creature. Yet, this is the price of survival: No creature can live without the deaths of other living things. The death of the moose exemplifies Paulsen’s death motif, and serves as a reminder of nature’s harshness. 

“It rained for a solid eight days, cold and wet, and if he hadn’t had the shelter and meat he would have gone crazy. And in a strange way it never really did stop raining. Each day it got colder and colder and the rain kept coming down and Brian could hear limbs breaking off with the weight of the ice on them and just when he thought he could stand it no longer the rain turned to snow.” 

Paulsen constantly describes changes in the weather and Brian’s responses to them. In this way, he highlights the steady drop in temperature as winter progresses and shows how it affects Brian’s mentality and way of life in the woods. After a few occasions when rain lasts for over a week, Brian feels the mental effects of being stuck inside. When he eventually has the necessary clothing to walk and stay warm in the snow, he realizes how much he missed being active in nature and observing his surroundings. 

“And he wondered that night—the night of day ninety-four—if this was it; was this all winter would be? Eating meat and rubbing hide and waiting for the next rain to turn to snow?” 

Stuck inside his shelter because of the cold, Brian goes outside only to gather wood. He spends the majority of his time softening the moose hide and making clothing from it. Although he feels thankful to have plenty of meat, the monotony of his days inside confronts him. Brian’s questions highlight the basic human need for activity—winter has ended the full, dynamic days he used to know. 

“What he wanted more than anything was out, to be back in the world. To have all that stuff and be back in the world and then to go to a movie, no, to sit and watch television with your belly packed and watch a football game and belch and…That was what he wanted. What he did instead was clean his shelter.” 

As Brian plans to celebrate Thanksgiving, he remembers his life back home and all the foods and comforts he used to enjoy. Although he misses that easy life greatly, he does not let homesickness keep him from facing the reality of his life now. Brian has a healthy mindset about his situation: Despite missing home and his mother, he doesn’t spend all his time and energy wishing for things he cannot have. Instead, he thinks about home from time to time, but stays grounded in the reality of his survival situation, always thinking about necessities of survival such as food, protection, and warmth. 

“Just that, escaping from the plane alive—that was luck. And to be able to live and learn and know things, to be able to hunt, to be thankful for the animals’ lives that had been spent to keep him fed, to be thankful for the deer and the moose, lord, the moose like getting a whole food store and to be thankful for his shelter and knife and the hatchet…The hatchet. The key to it all. Nothing without the hatchet. Just that would take all his thanks.” 

Brian’s thankfulness for the hatchet is a nod to the first novel in the series, Hatchet. It also shows Brian’s mentality: Instead of bitterness and anger, his heart fills with gratitude as he chooses to focus on the good luck rather than the bad. Simultaneously, Paulsen reveals the necessity of good luck in a survival situation. Although Brian has been resourceful and has worked hard to stay alive, he knows that luck greatly contributed to his success. 

“It was a world of beauty. It’s like being inside glass, he thought, a beautiful glass crystal. The air was so clear he could see tiny twigs, needles on pine trees fifty, seventy-five yards away, and so still that when a chickadee flew from a tree to the meat piled near the entrance—where they flocked and picked at the meat—he could actually hear the rush of air as the bird flapped its wings.” 

Paulsen’s use of imagery and detail displays Brian’s appreciation for nature’s beauty. Even though he has been in the woods for four months at this point, he sees them in a new way after the snowfall. This coincides with the theme of nature’s beauty and power; Brian values both simultaneously as he recognizes the intensity of the weather along with the splendor it creates. 

“Everything was different. The woods in summer were a certain way and now they were a different way, a completely different place. And if he was to stay alive he would have to learn this new place, this winter woods. He would have to study it and know it. The next time he might not be so lucky…”

After realizing the gunshot sound he heard came from trees exploding in the cold, Brian recognizes that the summer woods he knew are completely different from the winter woods he now experiences. He must relearn his environment in order to survive in it. This relates to the theme that intellect plays an indispensable role in survival: Brian’s choice to humble himself as a learner will be vital for success. 

“It was incredible, he thought, how the snowshoes seemed to change everything, change his whole attitude. He’d been closing down, he realized—settling into the shelter, not paying attention to things, getting more and more into his own thinking, and the shoes changed all that. He felt like moving, hunting, seeing things, doing things again.” 

Once the snowshoes give Brian the ability to walk unencumbered in the snow, he realizes how much he has missed being active, both mentally and physically. This relates to Paulsen’s theme that people have a need for activity and stimulation. Unable to move, see, and experience things, Brian was shutting down without realizing it. The snowshoes change his situation, and therefore his mindset, allowing him to satisfy his need for activity and creative outlet. 

“It was colder than before, how cold he couldn’t guess, but when he went to the bathroom some of his urine froze on the way to the ground and broke when it hit and he spit on a clear area of hard-packed snow and the spit bounced.”

Paulsen’s imagery reveals to the reader how drastically the weather has changed. Although we cannot feel the cold physically, Paulsen provides a vivid description of the extreme cold so that the readers can experience it in their minds. This shows both the extreme conditions in which Brian lives, as well as the harsh side of nature. 

“Forever, Brian thought. It took forever. With the moose there had been violence, the charge, his killing lance, but this…This was a kind of murder.” 

After shooting the buck with an arrow, Brian can’t stand how long it takes the animal to die. He feels terrible for killing the deer, especially since the deer was not causing him harm. This exemplifies Brian’s continued distaste for killing and death. Although he knows survival necessitates death, he feels sad—even guilty—for taking an animal’s life. Paulsen develops the motif of death and shows the harsh, unfair side of nature. 

“He would always find his way back by the snowshoe tracks and even if they filled in and it took him some time to find his way home to the shelter in a very real sense he was always home now in the woods.”

Brian ventures out farther from his shelter than ever before, driven by a desire to explore and know the woods more. Perhaps for the first time, Brian no longer simply survives; he thrives. He has become at home in nature, so much so that he doesn’t worry about finding his way back or spending a night away from his camp. This marks an important change in Brian’s situation and perspective. He now sees the woods as home, rather than something he must endure.

“Brian wanted to not see it. He had thought killing with the arrows slow and bad but this—it was nothing like this. The wolves were crazy with it, with the smell of blood and from the hot intestines they pulled from the living moose, and the bull took forever to die, never died but just kept sinking down and down while the wolves ate him alive.” 

Paulsen illustrates the harsh side of nature through intense imagery as Brian witnesses a group of wolves take down a moose. Brian watches an animal die in a more bloody and painful way than any of his hunts. As much as he’s grown to love the natural world, he struggles to reconcile his own ideas of fairness and justice with seeing the wolves rip a living moose to shreds. The killing of the moose and Brian’s reaction to it contrast nature’s amorality with Brian’s humanity—he will never lose the part of himself that values mercy.

“A line. In the middle of a lake more than a mile away and below the ridge he was walking on, out across the ice from the east to the west side of the lake, there was a line, a straight line.” 

Paulsen’s repetition of “a line” in this quote serves two purposes: to highlight the peculiarity of a line in nature, and to mirror Brian’s thought process as he struggles to recognize the line’s meaning and significance. Paulsen often uses repetition like this to echo Brian’s deduction reasoning as he mulls things over. 

“I…don’t know what to say.” And Brian knew he meant it. He hadn’t spoken to a person in…he had to stop and think. The days weren’t there anymore—always they had been there in the back of his mind, every day, the count, and now they were gone.”

When Brian comes face to face with David Smallhorn, it’s the first time he’s seen another human being since the plane crash. Surprisingly, he can no longer remember how many days he has been in the wilderness. Paulsen uses irony to highlight the change that has taken place within Brian: He has come to accept the woods as his home and no longer counts the days since the crash. Ironically, just as he begins to view the woods as home, his circumstances change, and he can return to his home in the city.