The role of the flatboat in our country's evolution is far more significant than most Americans realize. Buck chronicles his adventure building a wooden flatboat from the bygone era of the early 1800s and journeying down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. He cast off down the river on the flatboat Patience accompanied by an eccentric crew of daring shipmates. Over the course of his voyage, steering a fragile wooden craft through narrow channels...

1932, Minnesota. The Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O'Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent's wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call...

The author shares her memories of pioneer life along the Mississippi Delta.