Lost in the Barrens

Lost in the Barrens is a 1956 children's novel by Farley Mowat. Later editions used the title Two Against the North. It won Governor General's Award in 1956 and the Canada Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award in 1958. Plot introduction Two Against the North is an adventure story that takes place in northern Manitoba and southwestern North West Territories in 1935. It tells a coming of age tale of two boys in their late teens, one a white boy who has recently lost his parents, the other a Cree boy from a tribe living nearby. The boys embark on a mission to relieve the starvation of a neighbouring village, occupied by the Chipewyans, but due to a series of unfortunate events become trapped above the tree line in Canada's northern Barren Lands during winter. The characters emerge again in Mowat's The Curse of the Viking Grave. Plot summary Jamie's parents died in a car accident in Toronto in 1931, and four years later he is under the care of his trapper uncle, Angus Macnair, who lives in Manitoba. Angus has supported Jamie's Saint George's boarding-school fees for a long time, but no longer does now that the fur trade has begun to decline. Thus, Jamie leaves the boarding school to live with his uncle. Jamie makes friends with the Cree Chief's son, Awasin. The Chief thinks a trader is cheating him; so he asks Angus and Jamie to go with him. It is eventually decided that Jamie has to stay in camp with Awasin because Angus's canoe could not hold three people as well as all of the gear. Soon after, a group of Chipewyans come to the Crees for help. The Chipewyans have been starving for days because they could not shoot enough deer the summer before. Awasin's Uncle Soloman is suspicious that the Chipewyans may just be looking for a free handout, and so the boys agree to go with them back to the Chipewyans' camp to verify that they need the supplies. Jamie wants to go, too; so the two and the Chipewyans who came (including Denikazi, their leader) canoe back to the Chipewyan camp. There, Denikazi has a misunderstanding that Jamie and Awasin are going with them on the hunt for the deer. This is how Jamie and Awasin start their journey for the deer hunt out in the barrens. Soon, they go up to the North farther, but they do not find any 'deer' (in the book, deer means barrenland caribou); so Denikazi orders Jamie and Awasin to stay with two young Chipewyans at a certain point until they come back.