Fourteen year old Shem runs away from home to join a fur trading expedition and ends up stranded in the Michigan wilderness where he befriends an old Ottawan woman who teaches him the necessary survival skills. An outstanding work of historical fiction uses letters, journal entries, historical documents and standard narrative prose to recreate a time and place. (Age 11 and older)

"Lame teenager Shem finds manhood in the Michigan wilderness with the help of an old Indian woman in a historical novel, written partly in the form of journal entries and letters, that depicts many facets of early nineteenth-century frontier life".--Booklist.