Post-apocalyptic thrillers tend to be set in the ruins of metropolises like Los Angeles or New York City.

Waubgeshig Rice’s latest novel of this genre is unique in that it is set in a Northern Ontario First Nation community. The story centres on an Anishinaabe family experiencing a major power outage on the reserve.

“As the catastrophe drags on, the small Anishinaabe community has to figure out how to adapt and also deal with conflicts within the community and visitors from the city who seek refuge in a post-apocalyptic world,” said Rice, who was at the Timmins Public Library on Saturday to showcase Moon of the Crusted Snow: A Novel.

Rice, who is Anishinaabe and from Wasauksing First Nation near Parry Sound, is also afternoon host at CBC’s Sudbury-based radio show Up North.

On Saturday, he was at the library reading passages from the novel, meeting with local residents and selling or signing copies of his book.

Rice said his book can teach non-Indigenous people about the realities of day-to-day life in an Indigenous community because they do not have the opportunity to learn about those practices either through mainstream media or personal relationships.

He began the story with an “everyday glimpse” of what a northern First Nation looks like and how it operates.

“That’s one of the things I really wanted to convey was just these are everyday people in reserves,” he said. “But also, there is always some context that comes along with that because every First Nation has dealt with colonialism and has dealt with being settled and displaced in a lot of ways.

“There’s a bit of historical context that I think you always have to include when you’re talking about contemporary Indigenous people so you do learn a little bit about some of the history that you may not necessarily be familiar with.”

While writing, Rice said he drew a lot from his own life. Having grown up on a First Nation, conveying those daily realities through words was easier for him to do and some of the more comfortable things he wrote about and took pride in.

Since Rice’s First Nation is on Georgian Bay beside a town and not in a remote area up north, he did not have that lived experience.

As a journalist, he has visited many northern communities for background research on the subject. Rice said he shared early drafts of the book with people who live in those northern communities to make sure the elements he wrote about were correct. He called it his due diligence as journalist.

The feedback from readers has been “generally pretty positive,” Rice said because people connect with the story in different ways. Fans of speculative, post-apocalyptic, dystopian fiction enjoy it because the book is part of that genre. Indigenous people appreciate the story because Indigenous characters are at centre and are the protagonists. Northerners like it since it is set in the North.

“I don’t think we see enough of that in mainstream Canadian literature. For me, I think it’s a great opportunity to reflect some of the communities and some of the realities of Northern Ontario and put the spotlight on a region that gets overlooked in a lot of ways,” said Rice.

One takeaway readers are left with is how important it is to have a good relationship with the land they live on.

“The land can sustain you, it can keep you alive and it’s important to live in harmony with it. Everything we’ve ever needed is in the land. Sometimes it could take a catastrophe like a big blackout to really remind us of where we are and what is really important in life.”

After working for the CBC for 14 years, Rice said he feels more inspired now than before to share Indigenous stories in light of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s final report. In his earlier days, there were opportunities to reflect Indigenous stories but he felt it was only “scratching the surface.”

“It’s a great opportunity but also a great responsibility that we have. I can offer more of that context or I can find people who can offer more of that context (on the radio show), whereas when I was a reporter, you don’t get a chance to do that as much. In current affairs, you do get to have some of those larger conversations that can offer some of that context which is great.”

Looking forward, Rice said he has a few short stories and anthologies he is interested in publishing. As a full-time radio host at CBC and a father of one and one on the way, there is “not a lot of room for extra writing,” he noted, adding he tries to keep his skills sharp by writing randomly in his free time.