Lost in the Barrens
Farley Mowat
 The parents of Jamie (the white boy) died in a car crash, thus he was under the care of his trapper uncle, Angus. Angus had supported Jamie's boarding-school fees for a long time, until the fur trade had declined. Angus could no longer support Jamie's school. Thus, Jamie left the boarding school to live with his uncle. Jamie made friends with the Cree Tribe's Chief's son, Awasin. Then the Chief thought a trader was cheating him, so he asked Angus and Jamie to go with him. Then, it was decided that Jamie would stay with Awasin for Angus' canoe could not hold three people and other things. Fortunately Jamie was fine with this and he even said that he would have more fun in the wilderness. Shortly after, Chipeweyans come to the Crees for help. The Chipeweyans were starving because the deer did not come at its usual time in the year. Awasin's mother was suspicious that the Chipeweyans may just be looking for a free handout, and so the boys agreed to go with them back to the Chipeweyan's camp to prove they needed the supplies. Jamie decides he wants to go too, so the two and the Chipeweyans who came (including Denikazi, their leader), canoes back to the Chipeweyan camp. There, Denikazi misunderstood for he thought Jamie and Awasin were 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 Chipeweyans at a certain point until they come back. He includes that they should run, and forget about the camp should they encounter Eskimos. In this book, the Chipeweyans and the Crees are deathly afraid of the Eskimos. The Chipeweyan Chief Denikazi described it this way: his people went and hunted as far north as they wanted to for deer, for they had guns and the Eskimos did not. Then, the Eskimos got guns and fought back. (Nowadays Eskimos are called 'Inuit' or 'Thule', but this was not the case when Mowat wrote his novel, or for decades afterward). Anyway, while staying with the two young Chipewyan hunters, Jamie decides he wants to take the chance and explore. He tricks Awasin into it, and later Awasin gives in. They go up to see the 'stone house' that one of the two Chipeweyans had told them about. There, they try to find it but unexpectedly meet a whirlpool and barely survive. Gathering what they can salvage from the water and their broken canoe, they have barely enough to survive. They cannot use the canoe anymore, they are stranded in the barrens. When the two young Chipeweyans found out that Awasin and Jamie were gone they went on searching for them. Their search is abruptly stopped when they catch a glance of an Eskimo kayak. As for Jamie and Awasin, they decide to go the way that Denikazi and the other hunters went, so they can join with them on the journey back. A problem occurs, for one of Denikazi's men sees what he believes is an Eskimo and they all flee quietly back. They unknowingly pass by Jamie and Awasin's camp during the night. Jamie and Awasin are then forced to overcome a series of obstacles including finding shelter and food, to wait until the summer when they can make the trek back to their home camp with the best chance of survival. They engage in a massive caribou hunt, and able to build a log cabin and make a comfortable home for themselves. On their attempted return trip, they both become afflicted by snow blindness and are forced to build an igloo to survive. They are discovered by an Eskimo boy named Peetyuk who offers to help and takes them to his camp, where they learn that the Eskimo do not hate the cree, and are only hostile because they are as afraid of the Cree as the Cree are of them. The boys are able to return home with the help of their new friends, and they make plans to return to their cabin the next summer with Jamie's uncle Angus.