The Tender Years

Donald and Sadie MacIntosh emigrated west from Prince Edward Island in Eastern Canada, spending nearly four years on the Alberta prairies, where they gambled everything on raising their wheat crop. Between dust storms, hail, prairie fires, blizzards, and a difficult landlady, Donald and Sadie were beaten into submission. Loading their few possessions, they moved north in a railroad boxcar to the bushland to face new challenges. Meanwhile their family is burgeoning. By the time they reach the northern bush country, they have eight children. This story comes from the memoirs of these children as they grew up. The people they met and the conditions they endured made living in the North memorable, heartbreaking, and sometimes frightening, but there are tender and even laughable moments. This is the second book in the trilogy following The Gentle Gamblers.