Like most women born before the turn of the century, Mamie Elizabeth lived, by the standard of her day, an ordinary existence. She and her family lived in a small clearing near Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan, and they were wiped out by the Great Depression.

Yet day by day this determined woman cobbled together a rich, full existence that was anything but ordinary. To Mamie, the western frontier made everything seem possible. Her days were filled with characters - from her own unusual children to native Indians and fire-breathing evangelists - and their dramas were played out against the astonishing history, climate and landscape of the Canadian West.