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The Secret was that Brain Robeson Mother is having an affair.
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The pilot of the plan suffers a Heart attack and dies. The plan crashes into a lake in the Canadian woods, where Brain is stranded.
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After Brain Builds a shelter in the middle of the night a porcupine enter is shelter and he throws the hatchet at it.
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He finds some strange berries to eat, which make him extremely sick. He then finds a raspberry patch, where he spots a bear.
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Brain attempts to build a fire with no matches and eventually succeeds when he learns how to strike his hatchet against a stone to ignite sparks.
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Brain soon catches his first fish and enjoys a big feast.
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A plane filies overhead but does not see him and continues on its way leaving Brain devasted and hopeless.
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He attempts to commit suicide by cutting himself with the hatchet, but survives the attempt and emerges from the experience determined to embrace life and to take an active role in his own fate.
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A skunk enters the shelter and when Brain yells at the skunk, it sprays him, temporarily blinding him and coverning him with a horrible stench.
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Brain perfects his tools and catches a foolbird, his first meat.
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While he is cleaning the bird in the water, amoose attacks Brain, injuring his ribs and his shoulder.
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Another unfortunate incident soon follows when a tornado sweeps over the woods and destroys Brain's shelter.
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After a dreams of the survivalpack on the tail end of the plane, Brain determines tobuild a raft and retrieves the survival pack from the plane.
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As Brain is preparing his much anticipated meal, a plane lands on the lake to rescue a dumbfounded Brain sitting to eat his freeze-dried meal.
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Epilogue. Had Brain not been rescue when he was, had he been forrced to go into hard fall, perhaps winter in would have been very rough on him. game becomes seemingly plentiful in the fall (its easier to see with the leaves off the brush) but in winter it gets scarce and sometimes simply nonexistent as predators (fox, lynx, wolf, owls, weasels, fisher, martin, northern coyote) seep through areas and wipe things out.
