Based on the true story of two hundred desperate Irish families fleeing the Great Potato Famine and recruited with unfulfilled promises to build an ill-fated section of the Vermont Central Railroad. Set in New England's North Woods, the forces of unbridled industry, human tragedy, and re-awakened passion converge in this story of the immigrant experience in 1846. Based on a true story, and including characters taken from the pages of history, two hundred Irish families fleeing the Great Potato Famine journey from their inhospitable homeland to the frontier of the young and industrious United States of America. Instead of finding salvation, they become feed for the insatiable appetite of corporations pushing the tentacles of civilization into the frontier. Tension between those who take advantage of unrestrained commerce and those who answer to a higher power comes to a head when the forces of nature and the ambitions of mankind clash. Maurice Murphy, a widower, and his teenage daughter, Christine, make the journey across the frigid North Atlantic and into the work camps of the fledgling Vermont Central Railroad. The local Sheriff, who has secrets of his own, is in the pocket of the railroad while an industrious young woman evades the law to provide sustenance to the workers and travelers through Vermont's North Woods. A series of dramatic events brings these characters together to confront their past, to survive their present, and to shape their future.