Woodsong Chapter Summary & Analysis - Part I, Running, Chapter 8 Summary

Part I, Running, Chapter 8 Summary

In chapter 8, Paulsen opens with a story of running his dog team once more in incredibly cold weather. It had been around fifty below zero for three days and running his dog team was becoming difficult. They were low on their principal food, beef ravioli. The problem that arose was that Paulsen became violently ill from the food, which seemed to largely put him out of commission. He then hallucinated that a man came and helped him at a number of crucial junctures in the trip home, in getting him on the sled, untangling the dogs, keeping them orderly and so on. At the time, Paulsen thought he was an Eskimo. But now he knows there was no such man and doesn't speak of it too much. It must have been his own projection on himself about how some part of him survived long enough to get him home.