The River

“There was something about the food, preparing the food, looking at the food—there was so much of it compared to what he’d had in the woods. He enjoyed taking the food out, working with it and cooking it and serving it and eating it. Chewing each bite, knowing the food, watching other people eat.” 

Brian’s relationship with food is one of the biggest ways his experience in the woods changed him. He appreciates food in a way that most people do not, especially not teenage boys. Although he values everything about food, he is not a glutton; instead, he simply loves working with food and has a deep respect for it.

“No. You don’t understand. I truly discovered fire—the way some man or woman did it thousands and thousands of years ago. I discovered fire where it had been hidden in the rock for all of time and it was there for me. It doesn’t matter that we have matches or lighters or that fire is easy to make here in the other part of the world. I truly and honestly discovered fire.” 

Brian tells a counselor about his first experience in the woods but can’t make the counselor understand what it was like. Someone who has never needed to survive in nature as Brian did can’t understand his experience and takes for granted essential elements of survival, such as fire. 

“[C]oming close to death in the woods had led him to understand some things about himself and other people. He realized that he was not always right, was, indeed, often not right, and at the same time he found that others were not always wrong.”

Brian has a mature worldview far beyond his years. Contrary to the attitude of a typical teenager, he recognizes that others are often right and that he is often wrong. His near-death experience in the woods changed the way he views himself and others.

“In all the time since his return, he had had dozens of kids and not a few adults say how much they would have liked to do it—be marooned in the woods with nothing but a hatchet. But they always said it when they weren’t over a block and a half from a grocery store, usually in a room with lights and cushions on a couch and running water. None of them had ever said it while they were sitting in the dark with mosquitoes plugging their nostrils or night sounds so loud around them they couldn’t think.” 

No one understands what Brian went through in the Canadian woods. They romanticize survival in the woods as an exciting accomplishment rather than the horrifying ordeal it truly is. Only Brian understands what it’s like to be without all comforts and at the mercy of nature. 

“There was much between them since he came back, much understanding. She treated him much more as an adult and she understood.” 

Brian’s relationship with his mother has changed since his return. She recognizes his growth in maturity, and the two share a relationship as equals.

“‘I don’t mean hunger like you’re thinking of it,’ he had told her. ‘Not just when you miss a meal and feel like eating a little bit. Or even if you go a day without eating. I mean where you don’t think you’re ever going to eat again—don’t know if there will ever be more food. An end to food. Where you won’t eat and you won’t eat and then you still won’t eat and finally you still won’t eat and even when you die and are gone, even then there won’t be any food. That kind of hunger.’” 

As Brian describes the hunger he experienced in the woods, it becomes clear to the reader that he or she has never experienced this level of hunger. Paulsen uses repetition to emphasize the psychological desperation involved in extreme hunger and shows how Brian’s experience in the woods was both mentally and physically challenging.

“What they were going to do proved nothing. They were playing a game and it struck him that Derek did that—his whole life was that.” 

Although Derek has good intentions, he unwittingly views survival as a game rather than a life-or-death situation. Brian, although young, understands the seriousness of returning to the woods. This quote shows how Brian differs from the average person because of his survival experience.

“At the bottom edge of the lake and off to the right a short distance a river flowed south and east, and it was amazing to Brian how accurate the map had been.” 

Brian casually observes the river from his vantage point in the bush plane, not knowing at this point how large of a role it will play in both jeopardizing and rescuing him. Paulsen’s subtle recognition of the river early in the novel sets the scene and serves as foreshadowing for the dramatic journey to come. 

“Like a kid, he thought. He’s as excited as a kid. I’m the kid here, and I’m not excited. That’s because he doesn’t know. I know and he doesn’t.” 

In the woods, Brian feels he and Derek have reversed roles. Derek is naïve about the seriousness of their situation. In contrast, Brian’s firsthand knowledge of the mental and physical trials of survival gives him a huge responsibility to keep them both alive. 

“Then, instantly—in just that part of a second—he changed. Completely. He became, suddenly, what he’d been before at the lake. Part of it, all of it; inside all of it so that every…single…little…thing became important.” 

As soon as Brian steps out of the bush plane, a palpable change comes over him. His senses return to their same heightened state from his first time in the woods. His sharp senses developed the first time out of necessity for survival, and they return in an instant when survival is again his focus.

“So much talk, Brian thought. Just jabber, jabber all the time. Like bluejays. We stand here and talk, and in seven, eight hours it will rain and we don’t have shelter or dry wood or a fire going. Talk.”

Brian understands that in nature, time is of the essence. While Derek spends valuable time talking, Brian knows they have work to do before nightfall. Brian’s thoughts about time demonstrate his role as the authority figure while he and Derek are in the woods. 

“‘I had forgotten,’ Brian said. ‘I had dreams after I got out last time. Not all nightmares, but dreams. I would dream of this, of how pretty it was, how it could stop your breath with it, and then I would wake up in my room with the traffic sounds and the streetlights outside and I would feel bad—miss it. I would miss this.’” 

Recognizing the beauty of nature all around him, Brian remembers his dreams of the lake’s beauty when he returned from his first experience in the woods. As time passed, he remembered less of nature’s beauty and more of its severity. Now that he has returned, he remembers how much he actually missed being in the woods, a surprising emotion for someone who almost died there. 

“You watch other animals, birds, fish, even down to ants—they spend all their time working at food. Getting something to eat. That’s what nature is, really—getting food. And when you’re out here, having to live, you look for food. Food first. Food. Food.” 

Brian emphasizes to Derek the importance of food in all of nature. Brian’s wisdom comes from his observations of animals during The Time. His words show a deep understanding of nature foreign to most people who have never needed to struggle for food. 

“Luck. You move and you watch and you work hard and you just keep doing that until luck comes. If it’s bad luck you ride it out and if it comes the other way and you have good luck you’re ready for it.” 

Brian feels he largely owes his success in the woods to luck. Although Paulsen shows the importance of luck for Brian and Derek’s successful river run, he also shows taking action and making good decisions as key components of survival. Brian prepares for good or bad luck but also makes crucial decisions when needed.

“He would never forget the first fire, what it had meant to him—as important as it must have been to early man—and he approached making a fire now almost as a religious experience.” 

Similar to his deep appreciation for food, Brian highly values fire. He knows he would have died without discovering fire during his first experience in the woods and reveres fire as fervently as men have throughout history. Paulsen shows that only recently in history have humans lost appreciation for fire.

“And they settled in for the rest of the day and that night and later Brian would remember what they had said—how it needed tension—and wish he had not thought it at all.” 

In this sentence that ends a chapter, Paulsen foreshadows the emergency to come. Brian and Derek just finished a conversation about how easy their first few days in the woods have been, and Brian feels that their immediate success ruins the authenticity of the experience. Brian knows that the need for survival arises from emergency, so for a true survival experience, an emergency—or tension—is needed.

“A warm summer morning with birds singing, Brian thought, looking across the mirrored surface of the lake—a beautiful summer morning with birds singing and fish jumping on the lake and everything perfect, except for this one thing. This one little thing. Derek was in a coma.”

Paulsen’s use of repetition and imagery of nature emphasizes Brian’s recognition of nature’s beauty in contrast with Derek’s comatose state. Nature is both lovely enough to capture Brian’s admiration and powerful enough to “cut down” Derek (101) and leave Brian unsure and afraid.

“He couldn’t leave Derek. He couldn’t leave Derek…What if he took Derek with him?” 

Consecutive repetition of the same phrase reveals Brian’s thought process to the reader. As he mulls over his situation, ideas come one at a time. Brian’s simple processing of information makes his character feel real to the reader, and his clear thinking shows the importance of resisting panic in an emergency. 

“If there was one thing he understood about working in an emergency—surviving—it was that there was a large measure of luck involved.” 

Brian recognizes that he can only do so much to save Derek. He will need luck in terms of weather, speed, and finding people at the trading post. Brian’s perspective develops the theme that both good luck and good decisions are necessary for survival. 

“He stood and looked across the lake and felt strangely old. It was his decision to make and yet another man could die because of what he decided.” 

Brian matured by leaps and bounds during his first ordeal in the woods. Now, the situation with Derek forces him to mature even more. Even though only a teenager, Brian is responsible for Derek’s life, and his decisions could save him or condemn him. Just as his first survival experience shaped his personality and identity, so will his current situation.

“Time. Time was so strange. It didn’t mean anything, then it meant everything. It was like food. When he didn’t have it he wanted it, when there was plenty of it he didn’t care about it.” 

Paulsen highlights time in the novel as a commodity many people take for granted, similar to food and fire. Brian recognizes that in nature, time is of the essence. To get Derek to safety, Brian has only a few days before Derek will die from dehydration. 

“The water owned the raft, owned Derek, owned him. In the roaring, piling thunder of the river he had no control.” 

The river possesses immense strength and symbolizes all of nature’s power. Brian can’t resist the river’s current, showing that no matter how hard humans try to subdue nature, they will never be able to truly control it.  

“There was nothing but the green wall along either side, the trees that grew higher and higher now that the rock hills were passed, until they nearly closed over the top of the river, the green wall that closed in and covered him as he slid along the water, wanting to scream, but pulling instead, always pulling, a stroke, then another stroke, until there was not a difference between him and the water, until his skin was the water and the water was him, until he was the river and he came to the raft.” 

Imagery of the trees and river show the river’s beauty, while simultaneously Brian struggles to press on. He feels both in awe of nature and at its mercy, until he eventually becomes one with the river. This quote highlights the contrast between nature’s power and beauty and describes Brian’s arduous swim to the raft.