Chapter summaries Moon of the Turning Leaves Waubgeshig Rice

Chapter 5 Summary, Analysis, and Key Takeaways

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

Twelve days after the community ceremony that announced the walking group, the six travellers—Evan, Nangohns, Tyler, J.C., Amber, and Cal—are ready to depart on a roughly two-month, thousand-kilometre journey south. Two days before leaving, they gathered in the main lodge to pack: tents, cooking pots, a .22 calibre rifle with two boxes of bullets, and other camping and hunting gear. Amber packs a mortar and pestle for preparing medicines found along the way, while Evan carries pouches of tobacco and sage. Small hand-held shakers are wrapped in hide and tucked among the supplies.

The night before departure, the six walkers join their partners—including Dan and Walter—and several other elders in a sweat lodge for a final cleansing ceremony. The ritual stretches late into the night with songs of healing and gratitude, stories, and prayers for safe passage. They emerge refreshed and empowered for the journey ahead.

At dawn, the community gathers once more on the shore of the big lake. Maiingan tends the fire in the stone circle, standing in for Tyler, the usual firekeeper, who is about to depart. Farewells unfold: Tyler and Nick hold each other in a long embrace; J.C. and Amanda laugh together while she wipes her eyes; Cal and Amber stand surrounded by family, hiding their nervousness behind a jovial facade. Nangohns sits with her father and cradles her niece Waawaaskone before handing the baby back to Pichi. Evan and Nicole share a quiet moment—she asks him to come back to her, and he promises he will.

The travelling song begins with four ceremonial beats. The community forms two lines pointing east, dancing in place, and the six walkers pass through single file—Evan first, then Nangohns, Tyler, J.C., Amber, and Cal—before heading into the bush.

They walk all morning along a familiar trail, following faded orange tape that Evan tied years after the power failure to mark the route between the old reserve and the new camp. Evan has told the others he wants to stop at the old reserve but has not explained why. Nangohns assumes he intends to scavenge for useful supplies.

When they reach the former townsite, the land has almost completely reclaimed it. Tall grass and maturing trees burst through foundations; houses sit with broken windows and peeling siding; rusted cars rest on deflated tires. The community had stripped the buildings of stairs, porches, and decks years earlier, carrying the lumber back to the new settlement. Evan notes that he is wearing black nylon shorts that belonged to one of the dead or missing.

They approach Evan and Nicole's old house, its baby-blue siding faded nearly white. Evan feels a void in his chest, knowing the memories of raising Nangohns there are all that remain. He retrieves a shovel from the shed, asks Cal and Tyler to move a small plastic shed, and digs into the earth beneath where it sat. He uncovers a sturdy plastic case containing a black garbage bag, a striped white wool blanket, and a white plastic package wrapped in tape. Inside are four black handguns, four extra magazines, and four boxes of 9-millimetre ammunition—160 rounds in total.

Tyler reacts with visible disapproval, saying he had wondered what became of those guns. Cal asks breathlessly whether they are his guns, and a wave of understanding passes over Nangohns. She recalls a story Cal told her when she was seven or eight: a stranger named Justin Scott, a large bald white man, had arrived by snowmobile during the first winter without power, bringing alcohol, drugs, and guns. He had tried to take over the band council and lured people under his influence, including Evan's younger brother Cam. When the community discovered that the food Scott promised was actually the bodies of the dead, a fight broke out, Evan was shot, and a woman named Meghan killed Scott with a shot to the head.

Nangohns had long suspected Cal was trying to scare her. When she asked her parents about it, they refused to discuss it, and Evan would grow stern and gloomy. Cam survived Scott's rule but was never the same and disappeared one night the following winter. Twelve years on, the violence of that first winter haunts the community in different ways—for the younger generation it is a ghost story pieced together from fragments, tinged with the elders' shame for allowing a monster into their midst and for what they had to do to destroy him.

Evan announces matter-of-factly that it is important each of them carries a weapon. Nangohns has her bow, Cal has the rifle, and the remaining four will each take a handgun. They clean and load the guns, test-fire them into the bush, and pack them away. Amber trades guns with Cal. Evan returns the blanket to the plastic case and leaves it in the shed.

The group continues east through the ruined centre of town, past the collapsed hockey rink, the scorched band office, and the overgrown school and gymnasium. They pass the community store, which J.C. remembers bitterly for its inflated prices. Beyond it lies the long slope where snowploughs once dumped cleared snow—the place where Tyler and Isaiah dragged Justin Scott's body on a sled and rolled it down the bank as a warning to trespassers. By spring, the remains were gone, consumed by birds and animals. Neither Evan nor Tyler lets on whether the slope stirs these memories.

They push on through thick brush, swatting flies, until they reach the river in the late afternoon and set up camp for the night. The river will lead them south to the city of Gibson—a route their people have followed since long before the hydro lines cut through the land.

Key Events

  • The six walkers depart after a sweat lodge ceremony and community farewell

  • The group stops at the abandoned old reserve, now reclaimed by vegetation

  • Evan digs up four buried handguns and 160 rounds of ammunition from his old property

  • Nangohns learns the full story of Justin Scott and the violence of the first winter

  • The group test-fires the guns and distributes them among the walkers

  • They pass the snowbank where Scott's body was dumped as a warning

  • The group camps by the river, heading south toward Gibson

Character Development

Evan carries the weight of the buried past. He has kept the guns hidden for over a decade without telling anyone, and his reluctance to explain the stop at the old reserve shows how deeply the shame of that first winter runs. His decision to arm the group is framed as practical necessity, but the chapter makes clear the guns are also a physical reminder of what the community did to survive.

Nangohns moves from vague childhood suspicion to full understanding. The ghost story she heard from Cal becomes concrete when she sees the guns and connects them to the scar on her father's chest. She is now old enough to be trusted with the truth, even if her parents have never spoken it aloud.

Tyler reacts with disapproval when the guns are revealed, suggesting he would rather leave that part of the past buried. His role in dumping Scott's body is confirmed through the stories Nangohns has heard.

Cal remains more curious than troubled, asking directly whether the guns belonged to Scott, representing the younger generation's incomplete grasp of the trauma.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Intergenerational trauma and secrecy. The violence of the first winter is never discussed openly in Evan's household. The younger generation knows it only as fragments and ghost stories, while the elders carry shame for what they had to do. The buried guns are a physical symbol of this hidden history—kept underground, out of sight, but never truly gone.

The land reclaiming ruins. The old reserve is described as nearly swallowed by vegetation, with trees growing through foundations and grass covering roads. The abandoned town functions as a graveyard, a place where both the community's former life and its buried secrets rest.

The snowbank as warning. Scott's body was deliberately dumped where it would freeze and be found—a message to any other potential intruders. The fact that his remains were eventually consumed by animals adds a grim finality to the community's act of self-preservation.

The river as ancestral route. The group's journey follows the river south, a path their people have used since before colonial infrastructure cut through the land. It connects the walkers to their ancestors even as they travel toward an uncertain future.

Colonial exploitation. The community store, remembered for charging inflated prices to First Nations customers, stands as a reminder of the systemic exploitation that preceded the collapse.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter brings the buried history of the first winter to the surface. The guns Evan digs up are not just supplies—they are physical evidence of the community's darkest moment, and their recovery forces the characters (and the reader) to confront what survival cost. The chapter also establishes the practical stakes of the journey: the walkers are now armed, and the route south is set. Nangohns's growing understanding of her father's past marks a turning point in her character, as she begins to see him not only as a parent but as someone shaped by violence and loss.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does Evan keep the guns a secret from the group until they reach the old reserve?

Evan has never told anyone, including his own daughter, about the buried guns. The secrecy reflects the shame the community carries about the violence of the first winter—the elders allowed Scott into their midst and had to kill him to survive. Evan's reluctance to explain the stop suggests he is still processing that trauma, even twelve years later. He frames the decision to arm the group as practical necessity, but the guns are also a reminder of what he and others were forced to do.

2. How does Nangohns's understanding of the past change in this chapter?

Nangohns had heard Cal's story about Justin Scott when she was young but suspected it was an attempt to scare her. Her parents refused to discuss it, and Evan would become stern and gloomy whenever she asked. In this chapter, seeing the actual guns and connecting them to the scar on her father's chest makes the story real. She moves from childhood suspicion to a fuller, more sober understanding of what her community endured and what her father survived.

3. What role does the abandoned old reserve play in the chapter?

The old reserve functions as a graveyard—both literally and figuratively. The land has reclaimed the buildings, and the community stripped the houses of anything useful years ago. Evan wears shorts that belonged to someone who is dead or missing. The buried guns beneath his old shed represent the community's buried history: the violence, the shame, and the acts of survival that no one speaks about openly. Passing through the ruins forces the walkers to confront that past before they can move forward.

Navigation

Published by What Happened?

How this guide was made Report an error