The journey for which this novel is named occurs in northwest Ontario. The area is a gorgeous wilderness dotted with abandoned mines, undiscovered trails, and a few farms and towns that are located far away from one another. The main industries in the area are pulp and paper, and prospectors work the mines. Indians, hunters, and pioneers also roam the territory—but the area is truly the domain of wild animals.

Winter, and its generous snow, takes up almost half of the calendar year in the region, keeping temperatures well below zero throughout what is traditionally thought of as spring. Then there is:

a sudden short burst of summer where everything grows with wild abandon; and as suddenly it is the fall again. To many who live there, fall is the burnished crown of the year, with the crisp sunny days and exhilarating air of the Northland; with clear blue skies, and drifting leaves, and, as far as the eye can see, the endless panorama of glorious rich flaming color in the turning trees (2).

The narrator tells us these things in order to introduce us to “the country over which the three travelers passed, and it was in the fall that they traveled, in the days of Indian summer” (2-3).