Brian's Winter - Gary Paulsen
FOREWORD
This book was written for all those readers of Hatchet and The River who wrote (I received as many as two hundred letters a day) to tell me they felt Brian Robeson’s story was left unfinished by his early rescue before, they said, “it became really hard going.” They asked: “What would happen if Brian hadn’t been rescued, if he had had to survive in the winter?” Since my life has been one of survival in winter—running two Iditarods, hunting and trapping as a boy and young man—the challenge became interesting, and so I researched and wrote Brian’s Winter, showing what could and perhaps would have happened had Brian not been rescued.
For the purpose of this story it is necessary to shift the idea left by Hatchet and suppose that although Brian did retrieve the survival pack from the plane, he did not trigger a radio signal and did not get rescued. Other than that I hope I have remained true to the story in Hatchet and that this book will answer the question of Brian’s winter survival.
It is important to note, however, that his previous knowledge was vital—he had to know summer survival to attempt living in winter. Had he been dropped in the winter with no previous knowledge of hunting, surviving, no education gained in the school of hard knocks during the summer, Brian probably would have died no matter what his luck or abilities.