Woodsong, set in the wilds of northern Minnesota and Alaska, highlights the intense wilderness theme prevalent in many of Paulsen's works. With his sharp observational skills, Paulsen transitions from hunting and trapping to becoming a dedicated student of nature. He studies the environment closely, allowing these observations to transform him. In the wilderness, he discovers beauty, violence, humor, and wisdom. Most importantly, he understands that he must invest time and effort to learn from his experiences.

When writing about the woods and the animals, Paulsen employs imagery, metaphors, similes, and alliteration to craft vivid descriptions. Hawk, the banty hen, "launches herself like a speckled red missile" as she charges across the yard. While canoeing a river, Paulsen portrays it as a "flat, winding river that cuts through the woods like a sluggish snake." Even during the Iditarod, when survival is his main concern, Paulsen notices a peak covered in snow and describes it as "like a cathedral." Another time, he captures the sparkle of winter's ice and snow by referring to it as "the diamond that is northern winter."

In Woodsong, Paulsen writes with emotional intensity, reflective of his vision quest or spiritual search for understanding nature. He also employs a varied pattern of sentence structures to enhance the emotions and drama in his descriptions. To convey the increasing tension of a scene, he may use clipped sentences, stark language, terse writing, and sentence fragments that reflect the gravity of the situation. For instance, at the start of the Iditarod, Paulsen worries about not finishing the race. "To scratch. Before the race it is spoken of as a disease. I am a leper, I will scratch—it is the same. Many will, but nobody wants to. Everyone wants to finish." Yet, at other moments, he uses long run-on sentences to express sadness. When Storm dies, Paulsen writes: "When I came back the next day I went to the kennel and there was silence until I came close and then the dogs went into the death song, which sounds much like the rain song, and I knew then Storm was gone."

Besides varying sentence structures, Paulsen also uses repetition to create a mood, as seen in his description of how exhausted he becomes during the Iditarod. "I am tired beyond belief. Beyond how it was in the army. Beyond anything I have known, I am tired." Earlier in Minnesota, after Cookie teaches him a lesson about the importance of listening to his dogs' instincts, he reflects on his own foolishness. "If I wanted to be stupid, if I persisted in being stupid, if I just couldn't resist being stupid, then she figured I had it coming."

While Paulsen can write very serious descriptions of nature's harsh realities, he also shares incidents filled with humor. When Wilson, the lead dog who is "dumber than a walnut," cuts his foot during the Iditarod, Paulsen takes a bootie accidentally frozen in soda slush and puts it on Wilson's leg. The next image Paulsen provides is of Wilson "running on three legs sucking on his foot."

Woodsong offers a vivid depiction of a man's encounters in the wilderness. It highlights the brutality of nature, showcasing the violence of animal predation and the fear felt by prey. Unlike wildlife documentaries that avoid showing a wolf's kill or books that provide detached descriptions, Paulsen provides a raw narrative. In the first chapter, he states, "Wolves do not kill clean." He then graphically details the "slow, ripping, terrible death" and the "pulling and jerking and tearing" that occurs while the deer is "still on her feet, still alive."...