Key Selling Points: This is a classic survival story. It documents how a young Indigenous girl survived nine days lost in a snowstorm in Northern Canada in 1944. Trina Rathgeber is the granddaughter of the main character, Ilse Schweder. She is from the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation. This book is based on extensive interviews she did with her grandmother before she died. The book references and illustrates Indigenous culture, knowledge and people in the North. It introduces young readers to additional content, including how to build a snow cave, what an Inukshuk represents and Inuit words for snow, among others. This novel is illustrated by Alina Pete from the Little Pine First Nation in Saskatchewan and colored by Jillian Dolan of Cree and Métis ancestry.

The illustrator worked extensively from reference photos and images to accurately represent the time and place in this book. Canadian author Farley Mowat heard Ilse's story of survival, wrote about it over the years and documented it in his book People of the Deer. But Ilse Schweder always felt it wasn't his story to tell. Lost at Windy Riveris written by her granddaughter, and this is how Ilse is taking her story back.