Frances lives in a beach town on Lake Winnipeg, the center of Manitoba's Icelandic community. Her family has lived in the town since Icelandic immigrants settled there in the late 1800s. One day Frances finds an old journal. The entries are written in Icelandic, and the pages are torn, moldy, and blurred. Yet Frances can't bring herself to throw it away. At the local old folks home, Frances finds a cranky, ailing man who agrees to help her read the journal. A friendship grows between them as the story of the journal unfolds. It's a tale of love, hardship, scandal, and a group of mysterious stowaways -- the story of Frances's great-great-grandparents.

Frances digs into her past and uncovers more than one family secret. In the end, Frances learns to use the past to navigate a future that will take her full circle -- back to the land of her ancestors. "A splendid addition to the numerous intergenerational stories and many other fine books in which characters explore their family trees." -- School Library Journal.