anessay comparing the strategies Atwood uses in two or more of these stories to explore the many interconnections between old, romanticized ideas of women, wilderness, and indigenous peoples. The critical study of these interconnections is sometimes called ecofeminism, and Atwood is considered by many to be an ecofeminist author.

The wilderness retreat in which “Wilderness Tips” takes place is called Wacousta Lodge, a name taken from the title of an 1832 novel by Canadian author John Richardson. The book is a highly romanticized novelization of a real event in Canadian history, Pontiac’s War. This naming choice reflects Atwood’s general interest in historiography, or the study of how history is written. Atwood explores the theme of historiography, and the idea that the writing of historical narratives and the writing of fiction isn’t as different as one might think, in many of her novels and short stories, including both “True Trash” and “Wilderness Tips.”

Both stories explore the ways in which literature and storytelling can perpetuate narratives which contribute to the historical conflation of women, wilderness, and indigenous people. In “True Trash,” she does this with the story the waitresses read aloud to one another from True Trash magazine, and in “Wilderness Tips,” she does it with her subtle reference to Richardson's Wacousta.

The parallel Atwood draws between wilderness and women’s bodies in “True Trash” is made clear in the way she describes the landscape surrounding Camp Adanaqui:

To Mr. B’s left is the end window, and beyond it is Georgian Bay, blue as amnesia, stretching to infinity. Rising out of it like the backs of whales, like rounded knees, like the calves and thighs of enormous floating women, are several islands of pink rock.

In this passage there is a gradual progression from landscape to animal, animal to women’s bodies, all in one fluid description, suggesting a convergence of the three into a single, muddled idea.

A related theme significant in both “True Trash” and “Wilderness Tips” is that of innocence, and of the archetype of the pure and innocent woman. Both Ronette in “True Trash” and Portia in “Wilderness Tips” could be read as examples of this archetype, and each of them is aligned with the landscape surrounding them in significant ways. Portia even merges with the landscape at the story’s end in an attempt to escape the reality of her marriage:

She takes off her clothes, not bothering even to listen for motorboats. They go so fast anyway she’d just be a blur. She wades into the lake, slipping into the water as if between the layers of a mirror: the glass layer, the silver layer. She meets the doubles of her own legs, her own arms, going down.

The significance of the lake being compared to a “mirror” in this passage is that the landscape here isn't just a landscape, but also Portia’s body—it becomes her body at the moment it reflects her image back at her on the surface of the lake.

Historically, wilderness has been seen as a place of purity and retreat from the chaos and ills of the civilized world. Women, too, have been regarded as places of refuge, not only because of the emotional and sexual support they have been expected to provide for their husbands, but also because they have traditionally been keepers of the domestic sphere. In this way, Portia and Ronette could both be read as examples of not only the archetype of the pure and innocent woman, but also personifications of the wilderness retreats that both of their stories unfold within.

In all three of these stories, these old models of wilderness and women are represented by Atwood as a dying breed from another, pre-1950s era, still present in sentimental literature like Wacousta and the stories in True Trash magazine, but gradually disappearing from everyday life.

How would you identify themes running commonly through a collection of short stories? What do you see in the characters and their behaviors? Are there similarities in the settings, or timeframes, or issues?

In this collection, only three stories actually feature a wilderness setting—the others are mostly set in Toronto—yet they are all under the banner of Wilderness Tips. What is the author suggesting?

It is interesting and perhaps helpful to consider that Margaret Atwood spent much of her early life in the wilderness, as her father was an entomologist working in northern Ontario. While they later moved to Toronto, Atwood carried the wilderness within her, often exploring the city’s ravines as though seeking the comfort of familiarity. The influence of her experiences in the natural world can be seen in many of Atwood's settings, and you can discover the interesting backstory that informs all her writings in The Red Shoes:Margaret Atwood Starting Out by Rosemary Sullivan.

In Wilderness Tips, then, what is proffered by the concept of “wilderness tips”? Does the term suggest survival, dealing with and overcoming adversity? Is Atwood hinting that there are mysterious hazards and treachery lurking everywhere? Is even the urban landscape a wilderness where people must navigate the pitfalls of the human condition?

What struggles do you see the characters enduring? What are their dreams and their disappointments, their unrequited longings? What are their losses, regrets, and recoveries? What are their survival techniques as they navigate life?

Are there more tender, vulnerable characters such as Donny, Selena, Julie, Lois, Susanna, and Portia? Are there more seasoned, pragmatic survivors such as Ronette, Kat, Lucie, Jane and Vincent, the narrator in “Weight,” and Prue?

Are there characters struggling with power issues, particularly women dealing with gender politics, a favorite topic of Atwood’s?

And what is the point of allusions to the “larger stories” of Bog Man, the Franklin Expedition, and Noriega of Panama? Is Atwood suggesting that all struggles of the human condition are ultimately one, on the same scale, and of equal merit?