While traveling west with her family in 1850, a young girl makes a patchwork quilt chronicling the experiences of the journey and reserves a special patch for her pet hen Josefina.

In 1899, railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman organized a most unusual summer voyage to the wilds of Alaska: He converted a steamship into a luxury "floating university," populated by some of America's best and brightest scientists and writers, including the anti-capitalist eco-prophet John Muir. Those aboard encountered a land of immeasurable beauty and impending environmental calamity. More than a hundred years later, Alaska is still America's most...

1844. The Stevens-Murphy company left Missouri to be the first wagons into California through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Mostly Irish Catholics, the party sought religious freedom and education in the mission-dominated land. When a heavy snowstorm hits in October, the party separates in three directions. Now young Mary Sullivan, newlywed Sarah Montgomery, widowed Ellen Murphy, and her pregnant sister-in-law Maolisa each risks losing those they loved....

Adventurous author, pioneering reporter, workaholic newspaper editor, passionate Indian rights activist, librarian, poet, anthropologist and archeologist, Charles Fletcher Lummis was a great colorful individualist who explored and popularized the American Southwest. In 1884, with a job offer to become City Editor of the Los Angeles Times, Lummis determined to walk to his new job from Ohio, covering over 3,500 miles through 8 states and territories....

Douglas Deeds, a fifteen-year-old orphan, keeps a journal of his travels by wagon train as a member of the ill-fated Donner Party, which became stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846-47.

After surviving her journey to California, Lee, who can sense the presence of gold, finds herself kidnapped by her Uncle Hiram, a man who will do anything to possess Lee and her supernatural talent.

An introductory history of the Oregon Trail and its significance in opening the west to settlers, including information on the people who opened the Trail, their reasons for going west, modes of transportation, and a description of a typical day on the Trail.