Ten-year-old Kirsten regrets the promise she has made to a ragged boy she discovers alone near a wrecked covered wagon not far from her Minnesota home.
Fourteen-year-old Polly Rodgers keeps a diary of her 1873 journey from England to Minnesota as part of a colony of eighty people seeking religious freedom, and of their first year struggling to make a life there, led by her father, a Baptist minister.
Carl Erik, a recent immigrant from Sweden, becomes the man of the house when his father and uncle go to work in a logging camp, and he learns many things about life in Minnesota while attending school, doing his chores, and trying to put meat on the table.
When legendary logger Paul Bunyan falls in love with Lucette Diana Kensack, he will do whatever it takes to win her heart, including trying to restore the Minnesota environment to its previous condition as part of Lucette's "love test."