This book depicts the struggles, bravery, and determination of the first settlers into this untamed Adirondack Region. Joel Plumley is the first arrival, and he imagines that he is the owner of the entire region. This creates disaster in the struggling community as these rugged individuals try to band to together to form a town. Join the town folks such as the formidable Lydia Stanton, Lysander Hall, Mitchel Sabattis, and the Keller women as they turn ice laden cabins into homes and begin to build a community among the panthers, moose, wolves and howling winds of this land glaciered into the Canadian Shield of North America.