In the Nipigon country north of the Great Lakes a young boy carved the figure of an Indian in a canoe, christened him Paddle-to-the-Sea, and set him on a melting snowbank which the spring sun was turning into a tumbling mountain stream. Then Paddle began a journey that took him hundreds of miles from his birthplace. He escaped the jaws of a hungry sawmill and went on to see many things on his long trip through the Great Lakes and down the Saint Lawrence River—wild animals fleeing a forest fire, the wreck of a steamer caught in an icy winter storm on Lake Superior, loading and unloading at busy docks, the peaceful farms bordering the Saint Lawrence. He took a dizzy plunge over Niagara Falls and managed by a miracle to survive the whirlpools. He was buffeted by many winds and currents and was helped on his way by human hands, until, at last, he reached the Atlantic and earned the right to be called a true Paddle-to-the-Sea.

From the dust jacket