In the midst of a pandemic I have really avoided anything that is dystopic. Reality is dystopic enough. But somehow I picked up Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow and it has haunted me since. Set in northern Ontario it is the story of a reserve where they wake up one morning without cell service, satellite service, power….any connection to people beyond the community. Young men who have been studying at college return to tell them that this has happened everywhere and that people are beginning to loot and pillage. Then a stranger shows up and asks for sanctuary.

Things unfold in an unsettling way and at the end you aren’t sure what you just read. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know though…although I guess I do because I’m looking forward to reading the sequel. The part that really hit me hard though and that has haunted me was when the elder says the catastrophe that really devastated the community happened many years ago with first contact.

It is a disturbing thought to think that for indigenous people the present has been dystopic for a long time.