***SPOILERS*** It was just a pain old hatched that his mom June Robason,Pamela Sue Martin, practically forced on him that in the end saved young 13 year old Brain, Jared Ruston, life. You could see that young Brain had his problems at the beginning of the movie in his parents June and Brad Robason, Stephen Meadows, splitting up over an extramarital affair that June had. It was in fact Brian who caught his mom and her boyfriend, Terrence H. Winkless, making out in the woods that had him freak out! That had him go so far, when his dad finally checked out for good, to almost kill himself.
Now on a plane trip to the far off Yukon Territory where his dad works at an oil refinery Brian feels that he's getting over the split between his parents. But what's to come is far more serious then him being the son in a one family household. It's that the single engine plane pilot Jack Holcomb, Ned Beatty, who really ended screwing things up for all, him and Brian,involved. Showing off his flying abilities and even forcing Brian,who doesn't have a license, to fly the plane Holcomb in all the excitement suffers a massive heart attack! Thus leaving poor Btrian on his own to both fly and land the aircraft! Miraculously landing the plane in an uncharted lake in the Yukon Brain is now on his own to survive in the vast Canadian wilderness with the now dead as a doornail Holcomb ending up as fish food. It's here where Brain's hatchet comes into play with him using it to start fires, by striking it against a flint rock, as well as build his own tree house and fight off the wild animals in the forest.
It was also Brian's hatchet, that he almost lost, that had him break through the half sunken plane fuselage, that submerged from the lake after a storm hit it, that had him get his hands on the survival kit with flares and an electronic sensing device that finally had him rescued. But before that happened Brian had to prove his worth in surviving both bear and wolf attacks as well as him being forced to eat worms and, as he called them, puke berries as well as the cold dark and dangerous nights in the Yukon; Where anything can happen and in Brian's case always did!
***SPOILERS*** There was a real happy ending to the movie with Brian not only surviving his unscheduled stop in the wild but his parents, June & Brad, getting back together again. And now, also together with his dog Irving, the once very insecure Brian can start a new life in him knowing that he's got what it takes in making it in the cold hard and unpredictable world that he lives in: Both in civilization as well as in the wild!
