Aside from Pierre, each Indigenous character in the novel is depicted in relation to Otter Lake Reserve, demonstrating that for many Indigenous people, reserves are all that is left of their heritage after the myriad horrors of white colonization. Despite this grim reality, the conditions on the reserve cause the characters to experience immense detachment as they seek to improve their situations, even at the cost of losing their most meaningful connections. Within this context, Pierre and Tiffany both epitomize different versions of Indigenous pain and disconnection from their homes, history, and culture, and both must find their own ways of returning to it and reclaiming it after being harmed by the “outside” world.

Home and culture, within the novel, exist in tight relation to one another. Tiffany’s “home” is the Hunter household, but when her relationships grow tense and she loses autonomy and personhood, she seeks belonging in a gradually expanding sphere, wheeling desperately from her friends on the reserve, to Tony, to her mother, and finding nothing but different forms of rejection in each instance. When these encounters systematically fail her, she flees to the woods, and her escape symbolizes a subconscious search for meaning.