The plot line of North Woods spans nearly four centuries in the central narrative and many more in the book’s final chapter. Each character that emerges and disappears over the course of the story is intent on finding some version of paradise in the woods. Ultimately, however, they all fail. The young lovers who flee Puritan oppression see the woods as their final home and refuge, and they immediately begin to plant a garden there. However, for them and all those who follow, the paradise they seek to create is already lost. The female lover, in her later years, lives in the same cabin in the woods until encroachments from Puritan scouts threaten her idyllic existence and that of the area’s Indigenous community. Her response is to try to kill the men who bring discord to the woods, and she’s also killed in the process.

The captive girl whom the Indigenous people deposit on the elderly woman’s doorstep comes to view the cabin and her hostess as her source of refuge. However, she flees after burying the scouts and the woman, feeling that her perception of the place as an Eden is an

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