Lost at Windy River: A True Story of Survival - Trina Rathgeber - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Trina Rathgeber

ILLUSTRATOR: Alina Pete

COLOURIST: Jillian Dolan

GENRE: Middle-grade Graphic Novel.

PUBLICATION DATE:

RATING: 3.5 stars

In a Nutshell: A middle-grade graphic novel based on a true survival story. Great intent, decent plot execution, amazing information about indigenous beliefs and life in the cold North.

Plot Preview:

In 1944, thirteen-year-old Ilse Schweder, who stayed with her father and her siblings near the Windy River Trading Post in northern Canada, was lost in a snowstorm. She survived in the wintry white for nine days using sheer grit and her indigenous knowledge of the terrain, until she was finally rescued.

This is her survival story, written by her granddaughter.

A Canadian author had documented a version of Ilse’s survival story in his 1952 book, ‘People of the Deer’. Ilse wasn’t happy with it as she felt that it wasn’t his story to tell, and that the character he wrote simply wouldn’t have survived the snowy wilderness without having the indigenous knowledge Ilse did. Ilse’s granddaughter decided to pen the authentic version down, even though her grandma is no longer alive to see this book. Trina conducted extensive interviews with Ilse before the latter’s death in 2018, and also researched the story from archives. Her efforts are evident in this graphic novel.

Ilse’s story is one of courage and determination. After she is lost and alone in the snowstorm, it would have been easy to give up hope. But she shows grit, and doesn’t allow negative thoughts to enter her mind for the most part. She uses the knowledge she has of the terrain, the survival skills taught to her by her father, and the faith in nature spirits ingrained in her by her late mother, to try anything that could help her survive. Her lasting for so long in that desolate and dangerous locale also has an element of luck, but mere luck is never enough, and Ilse’s story proves it.

While the book is successful in showing her inspiring experience, it could have done with some finetuning in storyboarding. The plot swerves back and forth too much without a smooth transition. The tricky structure might be a bit challenging to younger middle-graders. The background of the family should have been established much beyond mere introductions before jumping into the main sequence. Some dialogues feel a little forced and unnatural. That is to say, they don’t make sense in the conversation at all, but seem to be inserted for the benefit of younger readers to provide them some information about indigenous practices or a survival skill.

The author, the illustrator, and the colourist of this graphic novel are all indigenous. As a team, they offer a wonderful ode to indigenous culture through the text and the graphics. There are many intercepts where a specific cultural practice or belief is mentioned to offer greater clarity on the actions of the characters. While the plot-based conversational bubbles and captions come in a white-coloured background, the factual indigenous info comes in yellow textboxes, which is visually helpful to distinguish.

The story also highlights the life in the cold North and the struggles of daily living. It shows the close bond shared by Ilse and all her siblings, and how each of them contributes towards chores. Their routine life is hard, but they go about their work with a spirit of togetherness and joy. That said, the writing glosses over a few important details. For instance, the ages of the other siblings aren’t mentioned, even though there is a page introducing the Schweders. I am not sure why the first chapter that comes from 1953 shows Ilse as old, when she must have been just in her early twenties then. The family business is supposedly fur trade, but (thankfully for little readers), there is nothing about how they obtain the fur and the cruelties of the task.

The one thing that I genuinely didn’t understand was why the story stressed so much on Ilse’s being an indigenous girl rather than biracial. (Her father was a white German who had emigrated to Canada for work.) The book mentions that her father was a strict disciplinarian who taught her many survival skills for life in the North. But when it comes to depicting what helped Ilse in the aftermath of the storm, we see more focus on the indigenous beliefs such as the spirits of the ancestors and the caribou than on the life lessons taught by her dad. It was almost as if the story was trying to dilute the white part of her identity and credit her survival mainly to her indigenous blood. It doesn’t seem fair.

The illustrations are decent, not exactly in my kind of art style or colour palette, but they do the job. The focus is more on functionality than on artistic flamboyance, which goes with the tone of the story. There are many actual photos of Ilse and her family as well, which I really appreciate.

All in all, I loved Ilse’s story, but I wish the execution had been a bit smoother, especially considering that it is written for middle graders. This doesn’t take away from the bravery of the young protagonist, whose ordeal has many life lessons to offer.

Definitely recommended. This OwnVoices work would be an interesting addition to homes as well as classroom libraries, and would offer several interesting points of discussion.

My thanks to Orca Book Publishers for providing the DRC of “Lost at Windy River” via Edelweiss+. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.