The Barren Grounds

The Barren Grounds is a middle grade fantasy novel by David A. Robertson, a Norway House Cree Nation member and two-time winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award of Canada. The Barren Grounds is the first book in the Misewa Saga; it is a portal story based on an old Cree story that Robertson’s father used to tell him about a constellation in the sky. This study guide refers to the Puffin 2020 edition.

Plot Summary

Morgan is an Indigenous (Cree, as will eventually become clear) child who has been in foster care since she was three. Now in her eighth foster home, she has a foster brother, Eli, who is new to the system. Morgan is tired of taking care of Eli on the way to school, so she tries to sneak out of the house early, but her plot is foiled when James, her foster father, wakes up. James shapes Morgan’s breakfast into a happy face, which causes Morgan to say she’s not a child. She grabs Eli and they leave before eating breakfast. On the way to school, Morgan and Eli have their first conversation and bond. When they reach school, Eli accidentally drops his ever-present drawing pad, and a car runs over it. He is despondent; Morgan drops him off at his locker, unsure what to do with him. At Morgan’s locker, a girl in Morgan’s class named Emily talks to her for the first time.

In language arts, Morgan hands her poetry assignment in, but Mrs. Edwards returns it without a grade, telling her to try again: She knows Morgan can do better. During art class, the teacher kicks Morgan out for being disruptive, so Morgan texts her new friend Emily and asks her to get a drawing pad for Eli. After school, Morgan gives Eli the drawing pad and offers to show him her secret hiding place—the attic where James has forbidden them to go. In the attic, Morgan reads and Eli draws. Morgan feels air blowing on her and tells Eli to stop messing with her. Eli swears the wind is coming from the paper, and Morgan doesn’t know what to think.

Katie and James come home with Indigenous food for a fancy dinner. After dinner, Katie and James give Morgan cake and a present to celebrate her two-month anniversary with them. Morgan explodes when she opens the present and finds moccasins, saying they don’t understand what it’s like to be in foster care. After storming off, Morgan cries and uses tools left by a workman to open a door in the attic that has been painted shut; she finds a little room. Eli comes to comfort her, and they decide to make the little room their new hideout. Morgan tears out a drawing Eli has sketched of a wintery landscape with a humanoid looking animal. When they staple it to the wall, it opens a portal to the wintery world, and the creature in the picture starts running toward them. Eli tears it off the wall, closing the portal. Eli and Morgan fight about reopening the portal and go to their separate rooms. Katie finds Morgan and they make up, smoothing out the misunderstandings between them.

Morgan wakes up in the middle of the night; she’s freezing and realizes the cold is coming from the attic. Upstairs, Morgan finds the attic filled with snow from the portal that Eli has reopened. Morgan enters the portal to find Eli; before venturing into the blizzard, she closes the portal with some construction supplies she grabbed in the attic.

Morgan passes out in the snow looking for Eli and wakes to the humanoid creature from Eli’s drawing, the fisher named Ochek. He takes her back to his home, where he has also taken Eli. Morgan finds out that the land they are in is called Askí, and the village is Misewa in a region called the North Country; the land has been trapped in the “White Time,” an eternal winter, since a man came through the portal and stole the summer birds. After learning that a day in Askí is equal to an hour on Earth, Morgan agrees to stay and help for a week.

Ochek leads Morgan and Eli out of town to his trapline. When they reach a canyon with only a tree bridge across it, Morgan falls off the bridge and Eli helps save her. Across the bridge is Ochek’s campsite, where they sleep. They check the traps and find a squirrel eating a rabbit that the trap caught. Ochek chases the squirrel up a tree and says he will kill her when she comes down. The squirrel, Arik, used to live in Misewa and makes a deal with Ochek. She will take him to the “Green Time,” where the man is holding the summer birds, if Ochek doesn’t kill her. Ochek agrees if the Council of Misewa agrees as well. Ochek, Arik, Morgan, and Eli go before the Council, which gives them permission to recapture the summer birds and bring the Green Time back.

Ochek, Arik, Morgan, and Eli travel through the forest toward the mountains. When they reach the canyon again, they cross an ice bridge. They set up camp in the safety of the mountains but find wolf tracks around their tent in the morning. On their hike up the mountain, they meet the wolf. He tells the group that if they turn back, he won’t kill them: He will give them until they reach the summit to decide. The group continues until they reach the summit, from which they can see the Green Time. During the night, the wolf attacks them and drags Eli out of the tent. Morgan gives chase and rescues Eli. Ochek and the wolf then fight, and Ochek gravely injures the wolf. When Ochek is about to deliver the killing blow, Eli stops him. Ochek carries the wolf into the tent and tends his wounds. The wolf taunts the group, especially Eli, but Eli believes the wolf can change. The next morning, the wolf reveals his name, Mahihkan, to Eli.

Ochek, Arik, Morgan, and Eli travel down the mountain to the Green Time. Ochek realizes that all the game is gone and laments the harm humans have brought to the land. The group realizes they must save all of Askí from the man’s greed. The group swims across the lake that surrounds the man’s house.

On the island, they scope out the man’s house and make a game plan. Eli grabs the man’s canoe and keeps it ready to escape while Ochek and Morgan go to the window. There, Arik’s call lures out the crane, Tahtakiw, who helped the man steal the birds. Ochek grabs the crane’s beak while Morgan puts thread around it. Ochek then climbs inside the house and cuts the summer birds from the ceiling while the man sleeps. The group meets back in the canoe. Ochek holds the bag of summer birds because he doesn’t want to release them until they are closer to Misewa. Arik and Eli start paddling across, but an arrow hits Ochek in the shoulder. The group ducks while the man fires arrows at them from the shore. Arik peeks up enough to paddle until they are out of range, and then Eli joins her.

Once on land, the group runs back to their camp on the top of the mountain. The wolf is gone, and they lay Ochek where the wolf had been. Arik and Morgan bandage Ochek’s wound, and they rest until an arrow slices the tent. Ochek grabs the summer birds and climbs the sequoia tree they have camped under. He climbs to the top and releases the summer birds, but an arrow strikes his tail, which he is using to hold onto the tree. Ochek falls but then stops in midair; light envelops him, and he becomes a constellation in the sky.

The angry man chases Arik, Morgan, and Eli to the canyon, where the ice bridge has melted. Morgan and Arik stall for time and learn the man is named Mason. When Mason stops talking and points an arrow at Morgan, Mahihkan appears. Mason tells the wolf to kill Morgan, Eli, and Arik. The wolf hesitates, so Mason fires an arrow; however, Mahihkan charges him, causing the arrow to go astray. Mason and Mahihkan fall into the canyon, Mason tumbling into the river while the wolf hangs on with one paw. Morgan, Eli, and Arik try to pull him up, but he falls into the river anyway.

Arik, Morgan, and Eli cut down a tree to form a new bridge across the canyon. In Misewa, Muskwa, leader of the Council, says Morgan and Eli can stay as long as they like. Morgan says they must get back to Earth, and Muskwa says they can return to Misewa anytime. Arik goes with Morgan and Eli back to the “Great Tree” through which they entered Askí. They hug Arik, saying they will come back tomorrow night. Morgan and Eli go back through the portal. They act like a real family at breakfast and then go to school, where Morgan greets Emily with a hug. Morgan turns in her new poem, titled “On the Barren Grounds.”