Setting
The society of Waknuk resembles what we know as the beginning of the eighteenth century. It is based on agriculture, with little evidence of any industrialization. Like eighteenth-century England or North America, the people are very provincial in their outlook; their lives are controlled by a rigid code of morality, and religious beliefs are repressive and, often cruel.
Although both Labrador and New Zealand escape nuclear destruction, the similarity end there. Whereas Sealand is industrial and progressive, Waknuk is agricultural and regressive or, at best stagnant.
The middle of Labrador is affected by the nuclear holocaust to the extent that its climate is now temperate and suited to agricultural development. The farming appears to be somewhat communal, with one large farm having a great number of dependent workers. Houses are built close together for mutual protection.
Although the immediate area is fairly free of deviations, the further one goes in a southerly direction, the more the abnormalities increase. In those areas there is little control of nature by man, and all types of deviant form of life thrive.
The Fringes, which follow the Wild Country as one moves further south, contains practically no normal forms of life as we know them, and beyond this belt is a vast area known as the Badlands, where the worst results of radiation are found. In the some areas nothing grows at all; everything is black char or even polished glass. Evidence in the novel indicates that the Badlands are areas of what was once southern Canada and the United State
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