Michael Barnes

Twisting Trails Michael Barnes

Twisting Trails is a unique young adult historical novel about two teenagers from different cultures who meet on the northwest frontier during the heyday of the fur trade (1831-1837). Their adventures weave through a cast of famous Minnesotans from that era. Alexander Whitney is a fictional Fort Snelling soldier who meets Seth Eastman, Henry Schoolcraft, Samuel and Gideon Pond, Henry Sibley, Joseph Nicollet, and Dred Scott.

Angelique Reaume is a fictional Metis daughter to a French-Canadian voyageur and Ojibwe mother. She is related to the famous Native leader Flat Mouth, and crosses paths with George Bonga, Pierre Bottineau, Joseph Renville, and Lawrence Taliaferro. The teenagers develop a relationship amid adventures which take them from Fort Snelling up the Mississippi River to Lake Itasca. From an Ojibwe maple sugar camp to wild rice beds. Up the Red River Trail on a Metis bison hunt. To the Dakota's sacred pipestone quarry via the Minnesota River. Finally to Mendota, where Natives and Whites negotiate the Treaty of 1837.