Benefits Of Community In Moon Of The Crusted Snow

Liam Blanchette

Mr. Smith

NBE3U

Friday, January 20, 2023

Benefits of Community as shown in Moon of the Crusted Snow

Two “Prisoners” are faced with two options, act selfishly at the expense of the other prisoner or act in a cooperative manner to benefit the group as a whole whilst reaping fewer benefits individually. This is the prisoner's dilemma,” a paradox in decision analysis in which two individuals acting in their own self-interests do not produce the optimal outcome” (“Investopedia”). We can see a similar situation happen in the novel Moon of the Crusted Snow, authored by Waubgeshig Rice. In this novel, we see a community of Indigenous people surviving in an isolated community away from modern-day civilization. Despite dealing with internal

The first example of a strong communal bond shown throughout the novel is how they deal with being faced with the ever-growing issue of a wide-scale power outage. This outage affects services such as hydro, cell service, and cable television which are utilities that the community has grown accustomed to over the years. When these utilities are cut off and they are no longer able to contact anyone outside of the community, panic begins to ensue. However, the Chief and Council immediately begin devising plans, one of such plans being brought up by Chief Terry Meegis at a community meeting, “We all know there wasn’t enough food at the trading post to last us for the rest of the winter. And all that food is gone now anyway. So we have to use our emergency supply. There is a cache that will last us for a while. But again, we have to be smart

The narrator tells the reader about the community meeting and Evan’s emotions, “When it came time for questions before wrapping up, only about a dozen people remained, scattered behind Aileen, who sat stoically in the front row. Her poise appeased Evan. He noticed an easy smile on her face. She’s lived through it all, he thought. If she’s not worried, then we shouldn’t be.” (Waubgeshig Rice Pg. 57). In this quote we can read that Aileen's demeanor in a situation most is considering to be a crisis, is allowing Evans the opportunity to uncloud his thinking to better be able to deal with the situation ahead of them. Whilst there is still a tough event going on, the community has survived many past misfortunes in the past and will continue to do so due to the resilient nature of a close bonded community. Another example in the novel where one person's demeanor positively affected the way the community thinks about a situation is when Kevin and Nick returned from Gibson. They came bearing the news that the situation was worse for the more southern cities and towns. During the discussion between the Chief and Council and Kevin and Nick, the horrific and traumatic events that they had endured to leave Gibson were shared, including the worst part where the boys were forced to commit murder