He also fashions a shelter out of the underside of a rock overhang. He crafts a bow, some arrows, and a fishing spear to aid in his hunting. Over time, Brian develops his survival skills and becomes a fine woodsman. Simultaneously, he deals with many of Nature's dangers, including mosquitoes, a porcupine, two huge bears – one of which is a mother with her cubs –, a pack of three wolves, a skunk, a bad-tempered female moose, and even a tornado. He discovers how to make fire with the hatchet, and eats whatever food he can find, from rabbits and ruffed grouse – which he nicknames “foolbirds” – to turtle eggs, fish and berries. Throughout the summer, Brian learns how to survive on his own in the vast wilderness, with nothing but his windbreaker and a hatchet-a gift his mother gave him shortly before his plane departed. Brian tries to land the plane, but ends up crash-landing into a lake, in the middle of a vast forest. As he travels from Hampton on a single-engine Cessna bush plane to visit his father in the oil fields of Northern Canada for the summer, the pilot suddenly suffers a massive heart attack and dies.

Plot īrian Robeson is the thirteen-year-old son of divorced parents. Other novels in the series include The River (1991), Brian's Winter (1996), Brian's Return (1999) and Brian's Hunt (2003). It is the first novel of five in the Hatchet series. Hatchet is a 1986 Newbery Honor-winning young-adult wilderness survival novel written by American writer Gary Paulsen.

The river paulsen novel