Tracks

Chapter 1

Reading Check

1. A consumption epidemic has decimated the Chippewa people. (Chapter 1)

2. Moses is a living Pillager cousin who has gone mad. (Chapter 1)

3. The allotment collectors who visit Fleur are driven mad. (Chapter 1)

4. The lumber industry remains unaffected by the plight of the Chippewa people. (Chapter 1)

Short Answer

1. Nanapush rescues Fleur Pillager during the consumption epidemic. She lives with him for a while before returning to her family cabin in the woods. Lulu is Fleur Pillager’s daughter. Nanapush views Lulu as his granddaughter. (Chapter 1)

2. The villagers are unwilling to help Fleur because the Pillagers are reputed to work with nature to harm others. (Chapter 1)

3. Nanapush and Fleur suffer from a silent sickness because they are grieving their losses. (Chapter 1)

4. After being unable to burn Fleur’s family’s cabin, Edgar Pukwan dies. (Chapter 1)

Chapter 2

Reading Check

1. Men avoid Fleur because they believe she is married to the water monster, Misshepeshu. (Chapter 2)

2. Following one final card game, the butcher’s men attack and rape Fleur after she takes all the winnings. (Chapter 2)

3. Russell and Pauline watch the men attack Fleur but do not intervene. (Chapter 2)

4. The villagers speculate that the father of Fleur’s baby, Lulu, might be the water monster, a white man, or a windigo (a monster associated with winter and starvation). (Chapter 2)

Short Answer

1. Pauline, age 15, lives with her Aunt Regina and works at the butcher shop. Though younger than Fleur, Pauline admires and befriends Fleur. Later, when Lulu is born, Pauline helps Fleur. (Chapter 2)

2. Pauline leaves home to live with her aunt in Argus to take advantage of her “mixed blood” and light skin and the opportunities it may yield her. (Chapter 2)

3. The men at the butcher shop are intrigued by Fleur’s card playing because she always wins, although she keeps her winnings to a minimum, and they cannot catch her cheating. (Chapter 2)

4. The tornado spares most of the village and its people, but the butcher shop and the men in it are destroyed. (Chapter 2)

Chapter 3

Reading Check

1. Nanapush helps Eli by telling him how to woo Fleur. (Chapter 3)

2. Margaret persuades Pauline to reveal what happened to Fleur in Argus by laying a trap at the kitchen table. (Chapter 3)

3. Fleur finally gives birth when a drunk bear enters her cabin. (Chapter 3)

4. Nanapush names Fleur’s baby and bestows on the baby his name and the name of his dead daughter. (Chapter 3)

Short Answer

1. Fleur is reluctant to tell her own story about Argus because the uncertainty insulates her status among the tribe as a woman of mystery. (Chapter 3)

2. Margaret was married to Nanapush’s friend, now deceased. Nanapush and Margaret alternately bicker and help each other with their schemes. (Chapter 3)

3. Nanapush mentors Eli in hunting, fishing, and lovemaking. (Chapter 3)

4. Eli claims to be Lulu’s father, bestowing her the protection of his place in the tribe. (Chapter 3)

Chapter 4

Reading Check

1. Sophie goes to Fleur and Eli’s cabin, kneeling and unmoving in the yard. (Chapter 4)

2. Clarence tries to save Sophie by bringing her a statue of the Virgin Mary from the church. (Chapter 4)

3. Pauline witnesses the statue cry. (Chapter 4)

4. The Virgin’s tears turn to quartz. Pauline tries to save them in her pocket, but they melt. (Chapter 4)

Short Answer

1. Bernadette invites Pauline to live with her and mentors Pauline in helping people through the dying process. (Chapter 4)

2. Pauline’s narration is unreliable because visions and dreams plague her. She sees death arrive, talks to people who aren’t present, and reports flying to reach a high tree branch where she naps. (Chapter 4)

3. Pauline carries out revenge against Eli by giving him a love potion, inhabiting Sophie’s body, and enticing Eli into a sexual encounter. (Chapter 4)

4. Fleur breaks up with Eli after his affair with Sophie. (Chapter 4)

Chapter 5

Reading Check

1. Half of the tribe wants to sell its land to the government agent in exchange for cash. The other half wants to preserve tribal land. (Chapter 5)

2. Boy Lazarre and Clarence Morrissey kidnap Nanapush and Margaret due to the land controversy and Eli’s treatment of Sophie. (Chapter 5)

3. Fleur reacts to Margaret’s hair by cutting her own hair. (Chapter 5)

4. Margaret brings a starving Nanapush to Matchimanito while Eli and Fleur reconcile. (Chapter 5)

Short Answer

1. Nanapush guides Eli during a moose hunt by using old medicine to travel with Eli, helping him make decisions. (Chapter 5)

2. Nanapush tells Eli he must reduce his status in Fleur’s view to gain her pity. (Chapter 5)

3. Fleur reacts to the kidnapping by going to the Morrissey house and spreading bad medicine. She also cuts a sample of each man’s hair and takes fingernail pairings and the eyelash tips of Boy Lazarre. (Chapter 5)

4. Nanapush and Nestor find revenge against Boy Lazarre and Clarence Morrissey by setting a trap. They snare only Clarence, who survives but has a permanent lip sag. (Chapter 5)

Chapter 6

Reading Check

1. Pauline’s penances are intended to help her distinguish between the voices of Jesus and Satan. (Chapter 6)

2. Fleur’s second child is born prematurely and dies. (Chapter 6)

3. Fleur meets the butcher’s men in Chippewa heaven, where she beats them at cards again. (Chapter 6)

4. Margaret spits on Pauline when she offers to fetch Father Damien. (Chapter 6)

Short Answer

1. Pauline uses a love potion to charm Napoleon, with whom she has an affair. (Chapter 6)

2. Bernadette offers to raise Pauline’s baby if she ceases her abortion attempts. (Chapter 6)

3. Pauline believes Jesus makes her white, forgives her for the baby, and wants her to save Indian souls. (Chapter 6)

4. During Fleur’s labor, Pauline is confused and unable to help. Fleur throws a knife, pinning Pauline to a chair. (Chapter 6)

Chapter 7

Reading Check

1. Nanapush holds Lulu’s frost-bitten feet and chants over her. (Chapter 7)

2. Nanapush and his adopted family are saved from starvation by government food. (Chapter 7

3. Unpaid government taxes threaten the land of Margaret, Nanapush, and Fleur. (Chapter 7)

4. Margaret plans to save the land by selling cranberry bark to the tonic healer. (Chapter 7)

Short Answer

1. Bernadette goes to work for the land agent when Sophie and Clarence marry and move their families into the house, which they then destroy. (Chapter 7)

2. Lulu wears high heels and thin stockings and wants to marry a Morrissey. (Chapter 7)

3. Pauline shoves her hands into boiling water during a native ritual to show the power of Jesus. (Chapter 7)

4. Margaret frequently stays at her own house, and Nestor stays away hunting for long periods. (Chapter 7)

Chapter 8

Reading Check

1. Jesus and Satan visit Pauline during her suffering. (Chapter 8)

2. Pauline believes Jesus has abandoned her. (Chapter 8)

3. Pauline strangles Napoleon Morrissey and leaves his body in the woods near Fleur’s cabin. (Chapter 8)

4. Fleur’s final reaction to Pauline is to turn away. (Chapter 8)

Short Answer

1. Pauline goes to Matchimanito Lake to save Nanapush’s adopted family’s souls and defeat the lake monster. (Chapter 8)

2. Pauline returns to the convent naked and covered in mud and leaves. (Chapter 8)

3. Father Damien is unable to reach Pauline. Nanapush reaches her, but she tries to drown him, so he retreats. (Chapter 8)

4. Pauline becomes a nun and renames herself Leopolda. (Chapter 8)

Chapter 9

Reading Check

1. Fleur sends Lulu to boarding school for protection. (Chapter 9)

2. Margaret’s betrayal separates Eli from Fleur. He takes a logging job to earn money to buy back some Pillager land. (Chapter 9)

3. Nanapush stays with Margaret and moves into her house, but he doesn’t love her as much as he once did. (Chapter 9)

4. Fleur is blamed for Napoleon Morrisey’s death. (Chapter 9)

Short Answer

1. Margaret pays the taxes on her land but not on Nanapush’s or Fleur’s land. Their land is sold. (Chapter 9)

2. Fleur tries to drown herself. When Eli rescues her, she says Nestor will take her place because he knows of Margaret’s betrayal. (Chapter 9)

3. Fleur suspends trees around her cabin and then drops them on the loggers. (Chapter 9)

4. Fleur packs her cart with grave markers, fabric, and a black umbrella and heads south with Nanapush’s blessing. (Chapter 9)