Hatchet (novel) - Plot

Plot

Brian Robeson is a 13 year-old boy, whose parents are divorced, who travels on a Cessna 406 bush plane to visit his father in the oil fields in northern Canada for the summer. During the flight, the pilot suffers a heart attack and dies; Brian tries to land the plane, but ends up crash-landing into a lake in the forest, saving nothing but his hatchet and his own life.

Throughout the summer, Brian attempts to survive in the endless wilderness with only his hatchet, which was a gift his mother gave him shortly before his plane departed. He figures out how to make fire with the hatchet and makes himself eat whatever food he can find, such as snapping turtle eggs, fish, berries, fruit, rabbits, and birds. He deals with threats from animals such as a porcupine, bear, skunk, moose, wolves and eventually becomes a fine woodsman, crafting a bow, arrows, and a fishing spear. He also fashions a shelter out of the underside of a rock overhang. During his time alone, Brian struggles with memories of home, and the bittersweet memory of his mother, whom Brian had caught cheating on his father with somebody else.

When a sudden tornado hits the area, it draws the tail of the plane toward the shore of the lake. Brian makes a raft from a few broken off tree tops to get to the plane. When Brian is cutting his way into the tail of the plane, he drops his hatchet in the lake and dives in to get it. Once inside the plane, Brian finds a survival pack with an emergency transmitter, many packs of food, a first aid kit, some cooking utensils, and a .22 rifle. Back on shore, Brian activates the transmitter, but he does not know how to use it, he thinks it is broken and throws it aside. Later, when Brian is cooking the food packs, a fur buyer arrives in a float plane some time after because he caught the transmitter's signal. He rescues Brian, who returns home after 54 days in the wilderness a different person. Brian later finds himself marveling at all the food, quantities and variety, at the grocery store. He finally reaches his father at the oil fields, yet he is still unable to discuss his mother's affair with another man to his father.