Content Warning: This section discusses racism, colonialism and colonial violence, and sexual assault.

Crow Mary’s story is a journey of survival and homecoming. The novel explores Indigenous people’s survival against colonial trauma, violence, and cultural erasure, highlighting their historical struggles and endurance against colonialism. From the start of her life with Farwell, Crow Mary experiences alienation. Separated from her family and the Crow tribe, Crow Mary finds white people’s forts and cities isolating and disturbing. Grissom uses olfactory and visual imagery to describe Crow Mary’s perspective; the “rank smell” of Fort Benton and its “huge structures” suggest her sense of displacement. The “shattering” noise of the fort highlights the distorting effects of the colonial environment on the inner self. The text indicates the colonial efforts of cultural erasure, as during her marriage to Farwell, she is forced to change her name to Mary. Crow Mary’s identity is rooted in her traditional culture, and her life with a white man away from her homeland challenges her identity and inhibits her sense of belonging.

The text illustrates colonial trauma and the genocide against Indigenous people through the Cypress Hills massacre and the forced removal of Indigenous children to residential schools.