43 pages • 1 hour read
Crow Lake
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Part 5
Chapter 20 Summary
Kate and Daniel drive to Crow Lake. Daniel says it’s his first experience in real wilderness, but Kate corrects him: This isn’t wilderness. They’re driving on a paved road. Kate gets out of the car to pee in the moss, overcome with her love for the landscape.
The week before, after Kate had her moment of crisis in class, a student named Fiona deJong came to speak to her in her lab. Fiona had decided to leave university and wanted Kate to know because Fiona enjoyed her class. Fiona is from a small farm in Quebec, and she is the only one of five siblings pursuing higher education. She feels she is growing apart from her family and her boyfriend, who don’t understand why she’s still in school.
Kate tried to tell Fiona that it would be sensible to stay in school, but Fiona began to cry. Kate realized that they didn’t really come from identical backgrounds—unlike Fiona, Kate has always been encouraged by her family. She confessed she could be wrong but made Fiona agree to speak to the counseling office before making a decision.
The meeting with Fiona prompts Kate to realize that Daniel is right—she might not be the best professor, but she’s not the worst, either, and she has never once regretted her choices. She considers whether she’s grown away from her family and concludes that’s only the case with Matt. Although she loves him more than anyone, there’s distance between them.
Chapter 21 Summary
Daniel and Kate continue driving, talking about the land. Daniel says it’s a surprising place for an academic to come from, which annoys Kate, who thinks, “Surely the most unlikely place to produce an academic is a city, with its noise and confusion and lack of time for thought or contemplation?” (243).
Luke and Bo still live in their family home. Bo is 21 now and works as a cook in Struan. She did a cookery course but says she’s not interested in pursuing more education right now. Luke is 38. He makes furniture, which does “quite well,” along with doing janitorial work at the school. He’s unmarried. Sally got pregnant about a year after getting Luke fired, and she left the baby with the father to run off with someone else.
Kate remembers that when she was 13, a classmate alluded to a rumor that Luke was gay. It was just a rumor, and Kate thinks it got started because people couldn’t accept the sacrifice Luke had made by prioritizing his siblings over romance. As far as Kate knows, he’s still single, although she wonders about the relationship between him and Miss Carrington. Kate thinks about the Pyes. Mrs. Pye was distressed after Laurie left, and Calvin alienated the rest of the community. Kate guesses that Marie sought comfort from Matt, which must have brought them closer together.
Chapter 22 Summary
The summer before Matt plans to leave for university, Kate has trouble savoring the time they have together. Matt starts going off alone on Sundays, and Kate is upset by the lessened attention. Kate isn’t allowed to go to the ponds alone, but she does anyway. At the ponds she hears voices and spies Matt and Marie lying on the ground. Matt’s shirt is off, and Marie’s dress is open. Marie is crying, and Matt is trying to comfort her. Marie sees Kate and screams. Kate tries to run off, but Matt catches her. Marie is terrified Kate will tell what she saw, but Matt makes her promise she won’t. On the way home with Matt, Kate feels jealous that he’d rather pay attention to Marie. She asks if he’s mad at her, and he says no and smiles, but he looks miserable.
A few weeks before Matt is supposed to leave for university, Marie shows up at their house looking wild-eyed. In terrified hysterics, she cries, “Matt, he’ll kill me! You don’t believe me but he will! He killed Laurie, and he’ll kill me too!” (256).
Part 5 Analysis
Driving through northern Ontario with Daniel, Kate remembers just how much she loves the land that she comes from. The sensation she experiences on this drive is essentially the opposite of the one she felt panicking in her classroom: She is again overcome with wonder, reconnecting with her passion for the natural world.
Kate’s encounter with Fiona prompts Kate to consider her relationship with her family and to realize how critical it was that everyone in her life encouraged her to strive from a young age. Even though Kate comes from a tiny, rural community, she was never expected to limit herself. This distinction plays into the theme of nature versus nurture that runs through the book, also illustrated by Daniel’s mother’s comment about the importance of early teachers.
Remembering the rumor that Luke was gay, Kate thinks that people probably perpetuated the idea because it was harder to accept the truth: that Luke had really wanted a romance with a woman but had actively chosen to deprioritize that part of his life. Kate thinks that it probably seemed like less of a sacrifice if Luke wasn’t interested in romance anyway (she does not consider the fact that Luke would also be sacrificing romance if he was a gay man who remained closeted in their small community). Kate’s conclusion is that Luke was stronger and more admirable than many people were willing to accept.
The section closes with a pivotal moment: Marie comes to the Morrison home in a terror, having discovered that she’s pregnant. This discovery will set Matt’s life on an entirely new course. He will forgo university and commit to marrying Marie and raising their child instead. Marie’s hysterics are also how the siblings discover that Laurie is dead and that Calvin has killed him. Through these events, the fates of the Pyes and Morrisons become permanently bound together.
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