[1] It spans over 300 years and witnesses the deforestation of the New World from the arrival of Europeans into the contemporary era of global warming.

[2][3] The eponymous "barkskins" are indentured servants, transported from Paris slums to the wilds of New France in 1693, "... to clear the land, to subdue this evil wilderness," (p. 17) according to their master, a seigneur.

The two men are contracted for three years of service to earn land of their own, but Charles Duquet runs away at the first opportunity, seeking to make a fortune for himself in the fur trade or by any means he can.

"[2] As noted in her memoir, Bird Cloud, [5] Annie Proulx grew up in New England, attended college in Canada, and had a lifelong practice of spending summers in Newfoundland and winters in the States.

Proulx herself descended from English Americans on her mother's side and French Canadians on her father's, which makes her "mixed", although not to the same degree as the Sels in Barkskins.

[4][15][16] Several expressed disappointment that the passage of so many years seemed to shorten the time given to the portrayals of some promising characters, especially toward the end of the book.

Most readers found verisimilitude in these observations of the uncertainty and fragility of life, while a few spoke of an overwhelming echo of doom long foretold.