Part 5, Zeegwun (Spring), Chapters 12 and 13 Summary

"Maple Sugar Time" As ice breaks up on the lake, enabling the family to catch more fish, the famine of winter ends. As the family looks forward to maple sugar time, Angeline teaches the rest of the family the ways of reading and writing the white man's language she has learned in the missionary school. Eventually, the family travels to their traditional sugaring place in the bush, where they tap the sap running in the maple trees and boil it down to make syrup. During all the activity, Omakayas feels she is the only one thinking of Neewo and, at one point, disappears into the bush to cry privately. On her own, however, she finds she is unable to weep, feeling instead the presence of Neewo's spirit and being visited by the two young bears...