Ingrid Larsen, a young Swedish immigrant, arrives in Michigan in 1871 to search for her brother who has disappeared into the woods to work the dangerous lumber camps. Destitute and losing hope, she encounters a newly widowed farmer who is struggling to raise five children. Marriage would solve both of their problems, and so Ingrid proposes to a man she barely knows. She will fight to protect her new family - and to win the heart of her new husband....

Michigan, 1868. Just a few days after she gives birth alone in the Northwoods, a recently widowed young Chippewa woman stumbles into a nearby lumber camp in search of refuge from the winter snows. Come summer, it is clear that Moon Song cannot stay among the rough-and-tumble world of white lumbermen, so the camp owner sends Skypilot, his most trusted friend, to accompany Moon Song and her baby on the long and treacherous journey back to her people....