Canada in 1816. The British Empire has vanquished Napoleon, but at what cost! England, completely drained, seeks other avenues of sustenance for its impoverished people. It is within this context that the Scottish Lord Selkirk sends settlers and former soldiers of the Meuron and de Watteville regiments to reinforce his colony by the Red River, nowadays Winnipeg, Manitoba. The diary of Lieutenant Frédéric de Graffenried tells the epic of this adventurous expedition. The reader is taken along on three of the five Great Lakes, through the dangerous rapids and hard tedium of portages, through violent storms and the territories of the Indians, some proud - others wretched - many of them suffering already a dramatic decline due to the rum distributed by the Whites. During one dangerous journey in the deepest of winter, expedition members survived solely on moss, boiled leather strips and fir needle tea. This original and thrilling account keeps the reader spellbound until the end.