1930: Salter's Creek, former trading-post, an isolated settlement in NW Canada long-fallen into decline after rumours of a gold strike turned out to be false, serves scattered outlying homesteads hacked out of the surrounding forest by immigrant Scottish families dispossessed of their Highland birth-right by the Clearances. It is necessary to decide who should be responsible for the welfare of Kip Harrison, orphaned aged eight by a car accident and adopted by his elderly Great Aunt who dies shortly before his eleventh birthday. Should his guardian be the austere Minister and his wife, or...