A Small Compass

In 1806, Isobel Gunn was staring down the inevitability of a spinster's farm life in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, often referred to as the Island of Women.  At the same time, across the ocean in Maskinongé, Quebec, Marie-Anne Gaboury is facing the prospect that her dashing new coureur de bois husband will leave her a fur trade widow when he returns west to the wilderness.  Both women launch on perilous voyages that will change them forever and transform them into legends.  A Small Compass is the story of the first two non-indigenous women to venture into the western Canadian wilderness.  They meet and must help each other battle what they do and don't know to defend all they love.