Ruth Whitman has recreated the journal that Tamsen Donner lost on her nightmarish journey to California in 1846. With a grant from the National Endowment, Whitman traveled along the route of the Donner party, keeping her own diary and watching the American landscape unfold as it did to the eyes of a ninteenth-century New Englander. The journal, transforming historical fact into poetic insight, is a testimony to the optimism, dogged survival, integrity and courage of a woman pioneer. —Janet Falon, The Boston Globe