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.
Chapters 1-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Jamie and Awasin”
Content Warning: The source text uses outdated and offensive language to name and describe Indigenous and First Nations peoples. Please note that this guide uses the term Denésuliné to refer to Indigenous people identified in the source text as “Chipeweyan.” Although “Chipeweyan” or “Chipewyan” were frequently used exonyms at the time the text was published, Denésuliné is the endonym with which this Indigenous group widely identifies.
Jamie Macnair is an orphan whose parents died in a car accident seven years prior. His uncle Angus Macnair has funded his education at the Toronto boarding school for nearly a decade, but funds have run dry. Angus invites Jamie to the wilderness, and Jamie, lacking alternatives and eager for adventure, agrees. He arrives in The Pas by train to find Angus a jovial and exciting companion during the long journey north by canoe.
A year has passed since Jamie left Toronto for remote northern Canadian wilderness. He has enjoyed his time in a small log cabin on Macnair Lake with his uncle and company of Cree who live 20 miles away. Angus’s best friend and wilderness companion is Alphonse Meewasin, leader of the Woodland Cree Indians. His son, Awasin, becomes Jamie’s best friend and teaches Jamie how to survive in the Canadian arctic.
An illustration accompanies the chapter title, featuring a young man chopping wood in the foreground while an older man watches approvingly from in front of a log cabin.
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Camp of the Crees”
Alphonse believes fur merchants are cheating the Cree, and Angus suggests the Cree send their furs with him to The Pas for an honest trade. Alphonse agrees, but there is not enough space in the canoes for Angus to take Alphonse and the furs without leaving Jamie behind. Jamie agrees to stay with the Cree at Thanout Lake for the six to eight weeks Angus will be in The Pas.
Angus and Alphonse depart, and Jamie is eager for adventure among the Cree. Instead, Awasin’s mother keeps them busy with chores until one day a group of “Deer Eaters” arrive. Awasin explains that they are the Idthen Eldeli Chipewyans from the north, a group they are at peace with, though they used to be enemies. Their leader, Denikazi, explains that they are suffering from famine due to a lack of ammunition to hunt deer, their primary source of food. With Alphonse away, the decision to provide ammunition to the Deer Eaters falls on Awasin, who decides he and Jamie will travel back with the Deer Eaters to see if they are indeed starving or if it is a trick. If they need Cree help, Awasin will provide the ammo.
An illustration accompanies the chapter title, featuring a canoe made of birch bark bearing two Denésuliné.
Chapter 3 Summary: “To the Camps of the Deer Eaters”
The following morning, the men depart in a caravan of canoes with Jamie and Awasin in the rear with the ammo tucked into their bows. They stop for the night before completing a difficult two-mile portage and resuming the journey by canoe on a rapids-filled river. On the way, they pass an abandoned log cabin called Red-Head Post, abandoned by a long-missing trapper who headed north and never returned. They eventually reach Kasmere Lake, and, after hours of rowing, reach Denikazi’s camp. It is evident the people are starving, and Awasin decides he will give the ammo to Denikazi in the morning. However, Awasin learns that Denikazi expects the two boys to accompany the hunters into the Barrens. Jamie is eager to go, but Awasin is worried because he knows his father would not agree, nor would Angus. Nevertheless, Denikazi sends a messenger to Awasin’s mother saying they will be gone two weeks, then return.
An illustration accompanies the chapter title, featuring Jamie struggling under the weight of the canoe during the difficult portage, with Awasin in the background loaded with bags.
Chapter 4 Summary: “North to the Barrenlands”
Five canoes bearing hunters and their equipment depart from Denikazi’s camp for the Barrens. Denikazi reminds the boys that they must follow his orders. Soon their canoes leave the lake for a small stream, which forces them to portage constantly. They travel slowly across difficult terrain for three days before they spot White Partridge Hill in the distance. Once they arrive, they find no signs of deer, and must continue on. They travel for two more days, eventually reaching rapids which they forge despite their fear. They camp midway down the river, hoping to reach the plains bearing caribou for Denikazi’s people.
An illustration accompanies the chapter title, featuring Jamie and Awasin in a canoe paddling through thick, dangerous rapids.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Of Eskimos and Indians”
Denikazi prays to the ancient gods and then warns Jamie and Awasin that they cannot follow him into Inuit territory because the Inuit and Denésuliné (referred to in the text as “Chipeweyan”) are at war. When they wake, the others are gone, and they must navigate and travel on their own. After a long, hard day, they catch up and find Denikazi and his men in a state of depression. They understand no deer have been found.
The next morning, Denikazi announces that he will go north into the plains to find deer and take three men with him. Two men he will leave for six days with the boys. If they do not return, they are to retreat to a lower lake and wait an additional 15 days. If they do not return, the boys are to go home and report that the hunters have died.
The boys spend a day bored on shore, then go hunting ducks, killing enough to please their two babysitters. As they sit around the fire, one of the Denésuliné tells of a mysterious Great Stone House to the north. Jamie wants to go see it, but Awasin refuses, wishing to follow Denikazi’s orders.
An illustration accompanies the chapter title, featuring Denikazi raising his arms to the sky from atop a hill. Another mid-chapter illustration features a map of their journey north, including clearly demarcated Cree and Denésuliné territories and the “Land of Little Sticks.”
Chapter 6 Summary: “No Man’s Land”
The deer have not come and days have passed. When the two Denésuliné leave to hunt nearby, Jamie takes their canoe, loads it and yells from the lake that he is going to see the Great Stone House, with or without Awasin. At last, Awasin relents, and joins him. Awasin draws a map in the sand and marks their intended location using a pile of rocks.
The boys face intense rapids on the Kazon River, nearly capsizing their canoe. Without their Denésuliné guides, they face unknown waters as they encroach on Inuit lands. They stop to survey a rough patch and decide to forge ahead. In the rapids, Jamie jams his paddle against a massive boulder, and his paddle snaps just as they manage to paddle to safety. Awasin gives him the name “Breaker-of-Rocks” afterward. They paddle into safer waters where Jamie succeeds in killing a fish duck for their meal.
An illustration accompanies the chapter title, featuring Awasin drawing in the sandy beach while Jamie tends to the canoe.
Chapters 1-6 Analysis
Lost in the Barrens is a middle grade survival adventure that adheres to genre and audience conventions. Told in the past tense, it has a linear narrative structure with a mostly chronological timeline conveyed in third-person omniscient narration. The story follows Jamie and Awasin as they travel north. The omniscient narration provides insight into each boy’s thoughts and feelings, enhancing characterization. In early chapters, the boys’ thoughts are contrasted against Denikazi’s more stoic thoughts. The narrative structure, point-of-view, tense, and characterization adhere to middle grade survival narrative genre conventions, making the novel accessible and recognizable to young readers of adventure books.
The primary protagonists of Lost in the Barrens are Awasin and Jamie. Jamie is a Canadian of European heritage, who was educated in Toronto in a boarding school. He speaks English, loves exploration, and has an intense curiosity that drives him to act brazenly, at times disrespectfully. Jamie’s character employs stereotypical traits often associated with teenage boys: He is arrogant and has an elevated sense of his abilities.
Awasin is the son of the Cree chief who works closely with Angus, Jamie’s uncle and legal guardian. Awasin is reserved, thoughtful, and capable, but lacks the confidence to assert himself. He has a wealth of knowledge that he wields without pomp and understands Living in Harmony With Nature in a way Jamie cannot.
As a duo, the boys are described in terms of their differences: Awasin is mature, stoic, and knowledgeable while Jamie is impulsive, brash, and emotional. A delicate yin-yang balance exists between the boys wherein each complements and enhances the skills and assets of the other. This balance is best described by Awasin’s father Alphonse: “When the dog pup and the fox cub play together, the gods are pleased” (6).
The friends exist in a hierarchy defined by their caregivers, with Awasin in charge of Jamie while their respective guardians are away on business. Angus tells Jamie: “Awasin knows more about the north than you’ll ever know. He’ll be the boss” (6). Throughout the novel, Jamie alternates between respecting Awasin’s leadership and pushing Awasin to do what he wants through manipulation and trickery. During these moments, their delicate balance is disturbed, and chaos ensues. Jamie convinces Awasin to leave the Denésuliné hunting camp to look for the Great Stone House, and they are soon stranded in the wild. Jamie knows he has disrupted their harmony and caused chaos: “‘It was my fault,’ he thought. ‘I got Awasin into this’” (59).
The northern Canadian wilderness is on full display in Lost in the Barrens as Mowat describes the outdoors, the living structures of the white settlers and trappers and of the Indigenous peoples, the canoes, and the wildlife. Detailed descriptions of the setting are aided by a hand-sketched map in Chapter 5 showing landmarks mentioned in the text as well as territory boundaries. Each territory is marked as belonging to a different group. The most southern territory is inhabited by white trappers, including Jamie and his uncle Angus, in Cree country. North along a chain of lakes is Denésuliné territory on the banks of Kasmere Lake, which leads to a river that unites a string of smaller lakes. Finally, the river leads north to Lake Kaaba, a massive body of water in Land of the Little Sticks, in Inuit territory.
The peace between the territories is unstable, and fear keeps the groups separated unless interaction is necessary. These unstable circumstances dictate the route north the Denésuliné utilize, and drive the actions and reactions of Denikazi, their leader. Importantly, Denikazi only visits the Cree to request ammunition once his people are already in dire need of food. He only risked encountering the Cree out of necessity. The Cree and Denésuliné were once warring peoples, and the Denésuliné still consider themselves adversaries of the Inuit to the north. Denikazi explains how the Cree and Denésuliné once viewed each other: “‘When my father’s fathers went to the land of the Enna,’ he began, ‘they received only the sharp wounds of arrows’” (13). Awasin understands their warring past as well: “In the old days we used to fight them. But Alphonse made friends with them a long time back” (7). Further, Awasin knows that the Chipewyan visit the Cree camp only hesitatingly “when something’s wrong” (7).
The Denésuliné and Inuit also fight, as Awasin explains to Jamie:
Once, a long time ago, the Chips used to hunt out there regularly, but they used to fight the Eskimos whenever they met. In those days the Chips had rifles and the Eskimos didn’t. Then the Eskimos got rifles and fought back. The Idthen Eldeli haven’t dared go far out in the plains since (8).
Throughout the novel, the Denésuliné are fearful of the Inuit and take extreme measures to avoid entering Inuit territory. Denikazi’s hesitation to visit the Cree and his fear of the Inuit in the north reveal a leader wary of war and highlight the danger of exploring into territory controlled by peoples outside of one’s own group.
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