The author recounts summer days as a youth on a 70-acre piece of land on Saskatchewan's Qu'Appelle River, and introduces his immediate and extended family, most of whom are farmers. While travelling on it, he describes the effect of mining on the river and the valley, retells Cree and Metis legends, and also describes the more recent experiences of the Russians, Finns, Jews, Scots, and English who have settled in the area. A mixture of family history, ecology, and social commentary which laments the loss of rural culture.