In the present, Niska explains that the river is unfamiliar at this point in the journey, and that Xavier still refuses to eat. She then flashes back to her youth. She explains how she and her mother live in the bush, and are known as awawatuk. The awawatuk are viewed as dangerous and untrustworthy by both homeguard Indians and the white men. While in the bush, Niska’s mother tries teaching her as much as she can about the shaking tent, the sweat lodge and other traditions.

By the time Niska is seventeen, she has taken on her father’s role of divining for others. She can also summon animal spirits to the shaking tent and live off the land, but she feels restless. During this time, she meets a French trapper. She plays tricks on him, upsetting his traps and leaving footprints in the snow. Her restlessness only increases and Niska plans to capture the trapper and keep him as a pet of sorts. She decides to use her lodge, her askihkan, as a snare for the trapper. The trapper follows her bait and, in the end, enters her tent and begins undressing. Niska is overwhelmed by the trapper, and as she also undresses and realizes what her restlessness truly is, wonders which of the two is the hunter and who is being hunted.