The novel relates the struggle of the Cree Indians to keep their traditions alive in the face of colonization, modernization and racism. This struggle is exemplified in the novel in the distinction between “bush Indians” and “homeguard Indians”. Niska had a taste of town life as a child wants nothing to do with it. She did not like how the Indian children were treated in school, and she disliked being away from nature. She rebelled against the nuns and was, essentially, incarcerated, until her mother rescued her and the two left to live in the bush again. When she returns years later, she is unwelcome by most of the modernized Indians. Though she would prefer to live in the bush anyway, she does feel a sense of envy for the homeguard Indians, who are fat and full, and who seemingly want for nothing. She is thin and “wild-like,” by comparison.

Niska also faces another important trial when she falls in love with a French trapper. Though he is a white man, she begins an affair with him. When she eventually travels to Moose Factory to find him, he has sex with her in a church, a blasphemous act, and claims to have taken her “heathen power.