The Shipping News: Chapter 38: The Sled Dog Driver’s Dream  Summary & Analysis

Quoyle isn’t there when Alvin Yark finally puts the planks on the boat; he’s picking up Agnis. When he does arrive, he’s distracted by all the letters the Gammy Bird has received from people who left Newfoundland and who miss it but can’t fit back into the small, insular world. He thinks about Wavey. He wants to marry her but worries that their relationship would be haunted by the ghosts of Herold and Petal. He only comes back to the present moment when Alvin draws his attention to the seething sea. Bad weather is coming.

When Quoyle gets back from the boat house, dozens of people are already crowded into the Burke house for Agnis’s welcome-home party. Bunny wants to drag him upstairs to see something immediately. Upstairs, Bunny introduces Quoyle to Warren the Second, a husky puppy she received as a gift from Wavey, whose brother breeds the animals. Quoyle can hardly believe his eyes: it’s a white dog. But Bunny is full of plans to train the puppy and become a sled dog driver someday.

Downstairs, Quoyle hugs Agnis and greets Wavey with a very public kiss that raises cheers from the guests. Later, Beety serves cake and Quoyle helps himself to two slices. He’s going for a third when Billy Pretty blows in. He also has concerns about the weather, which is blowing up into an epic, once-in-a-lifetime storm. Jack felt it coming, too, and he excuses himself soon after Billy to hole up at home. By midnight, the wind blows fiercely, like the storms across the world that have their own fearsome identities. Billy says prayers for any poor souls caught at sea in the blast.

In the Burkes’ house, Agnis hears the wind, too. In St. John’s, Nolan feels satisfied at the epic winds he called up with his knots. Bunny dreams about flying up the chimney and across the bay on the screaming winds, where she watches the green house on the Point start to disintegrate, snap its cables, and tumble off the cliff. She wakes up screaming and it takes Quoyle a long time to calm her. The next day, Wavey comes to the Gammy Bird office with a summons for Quoyle from her father Archie. When Quoyle arrives at Archie’s house, the old man wordlessly hands over his binoculars and gestures toward the point. Quoyle looks and sees that the house is gone.

Quoyle finds Dennis and together they drive out the long road. All that’s left are the bolts driven into the rock and a few frayed pieces of cable. Agnis weeps when she hears the news, distraught that all their money and hard work—and their family history—has just vanished. But, she points out, she’s good at getting over things. Quoyle agrees, blurting out his knowledge of Guy’s abuse. The fact that her nephew knows her terrible secret makes Agnis feel ashamed. But she brushes that aside and agrees with Quoyle that they can rebuild a summer place out there. She thinks Quoyle should buy the Burke place for himself, Wavey, and the kids. She’s going to move into an apartment over her shop with Mrs. Bangs.