Moon of the Crusted Snow is an apocalyptic, postcolonial novel rooted in the experiences, culture, and history of the Anishinaabe (sometimes pluralized as Anishinaabeg) people on a fictional reservation in northern Canada. The traditional homelands of the Anishinaabe peoples extended north from the northern United States and Canadian Great Lakes region; the homeland of the people of the fictional First Nation reservation in the novel is much farther south, near the Great Lakes. They were forcibly removed by white settler colonialists to the current arctic location. The Anishinaabe First Nations experienced generations of cultural erasure and trauma at the hands of British colonialism and, later, the Canadian government. The Canadian government’s attempt at the ethno-cultural genocide of First Nations peoples resonates throughout Moon of the Crusted Snow, from generational trauma leading to alcohol and substance abuse, suicide, and generational poverty, to the alienation of younger generations from their traditional culture.

Rice’s novel also contains characteristics of the post-apocalyptic horror genre, in the vein of novels such as Lord of the Flies. Post-apocalyptic horror interrogates how human nature shapes or is shaped by cultural norms and explores the relationship between resource scarcity and social infrastructure.