A stubborn, irreverent and resourceful young woman discovers that it is the bonds of family, faith and friendship that will tie her to the wild and unpredictable land she comes to love so fiercely.

Seventeen-year-old Rebecca has traveled by covered wagon from Utah to the North-West Territories of Canada, where her parents and brothers are now homesteading and establishing a new community. Despite the back-breaking work, Rebecca decides that she, too, must have her own land. She sets to the seemingly impossible task of earning enough money to buy her homestead, while surviving the relentless challenges of pioneer life – the ones that mother nature throws at her in the form of blizzards, grizzlies, influenza or flood, and the ones that come with human nature, be they government bureaucracy, exasperating neighbours or the breathtaking frailty of life.

All the while, her quest opens a floodgate of questions. Why should she be expected to marry and be subject to her husband's domain? What kind of a man would she marry, anyway? Someone gallant and exciting like Levi Hunt? Or a man of ideas like Coby Webster? How can she make this land she loves her own?

Key Text Features

biographical note

chapters

epigraph

historical note

timeline