Brian's Hunt

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Brian's Hunt is a 2003 young adult novel by Gary Paulsen. This is the fifth book in the award-winning Hatchet series, which deals with Brian Robeson, a boy who learns wilderness survival when he is stranded after a plane wreck.

[edit] Plot summary

Brian, now sixteen years old, is canoeing through the Canadian wilderness. He realizes that the woods are now his home and he will never be happy in modern society, with its noise, pollution, and fake people. He now spends his time in the wild, hunting, fishing, and home schooling himself. While Brian does not miss human contact, he finds his thoughts frequently turning to Kay-gwa-daush (also known as Susan), the teenage daughter of the Cree family who rescued him at the end of Brian's Winter. Though he has only seen her photograph, her family has described her as an adventurous, self-reliant young woman, and Brian wonders if she might be a kindred spirit.

While canoeing, Brian finds a seriously wounded malamute dog, which he nurses back to health. The dog is clearly domesticated, and Brian begins to worry that whatever maimed the dog may have done the same to her masters. He every so often thinks that it's a bear, but he disagrees with himself. Why would a bear do this for no apparent reason? He remembers his Cree friends and decides to go check on them.

When Brian reaches their cabin, he finds that it really was a bear that had killed the parents and apparently chased Susan into hiding. Brian returns her to her home, radios for help, and buries the family, along with the dead dogs found in the destroyed, metal kennel that the bear took along with on his rampage. The authorities arrive to take Susan to relatives in Winnipeg. Brian, along with the dog, stays behind in order to hunt down and kill the bear, knowing very well that the hunt could cost him his life.

Works of Gary Paulsen

Brian series: Hatchet • Brian's Return • Brian's Winter • The River • Brian's Hunt Tucket series: Mr. Tucket • Call Me Francis Tucket • Tucket's Ride • Tucket's Gold • Tucket's Home • Tucket's Travels World of Adventure Series: Captive! • Curse of the Ruins • Danger on Midnight River • Escape from Fire Mountain historical novels: The Quilt • Alida's Song • Soldier's Heart • Nightjohn • Sarny comical books:The Amazing Life of Birds The Twenty-Day Puberty Journal of Duane Homer Leech • Molly McGinty Has a Really Good Day • The Glass Cafe: Or the Stripper and the State; How My Mother Started a War with the System That Made Us Kind of Rich and a Little Bit Famous • The Boy Who Owned the School • The Schernoff Discoveries • Harris and Me other: Canoe Days • The Beet Fields • The White Fox Chronicles • The Transall Saga • The Rifle •The Tent • Dogteam • The Car • A Christmas Sonata • The Monument •The Haymeadow • Woodsong • The Night the White Deer Died • Canyons • The Winter Room •The Voyage of the Frog • The Island • The Crossing non-fiction:How Angel Petersen Got His Name • Caught by the Sea • Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books • Father Water, Mother Woods • My Life in Dog Years • Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers