Set in 18th century Quebec City, this is ostensibly the narration of a year in the life of a widowed apothecary and his young daughter. A gentle tale, full of the small joys and daily struggles of a colonist's life in a harsh and unforgiving New World. Cather explores the links between the protagonists' past lives and their current existence through a series of different portraits – the apothecary and the little girl, a coureur du bois, a Jesuit missionary living in daily privation and danger, two contending Bishops, and even the Governor himself.