In 1910, the Grand Trunk Pacific railway is still four years from completion in British Columbia. The eastern end of construction is nearing the forbidding Rocky Mountains on the Alberta side of the border, while the western end, coming from Prince Rupert, must cope with the equally unforgiving coastal terrain of Northern BC.

This will become the most difficult section of track ever to be laid in North America.

Nevertheless, the GTP’s rail-towns of Prince Rupert and Fort George have already grown and are now thriving communities.

Jeff Hamilton’s job at David Drayton’s ‘Some Hotel’ in Prince Rupert has become profitable, but thankless, and longs for the day when he has a hotel to call his own. That day may not be far in coming: his father has returned home and his siblings are on the verge of beginning lives of their own.

Natalie Hamilton, upon meeting the dashing land speculator/hotelier Jonathan Sterling, has determined to end her relationship with David Drayton. Jonathan’s Sterling’s past is full of mysteries and secrets, but it is Natalie’s own secret that could destroy the future they could share together.

Heather Hamilton is still heartbroken over Dustin Sinclair and can only dream of his return from Hazelton. To Jeff’s consternation, she rejects his choices in suitors for her and is determined to forgive Dustin, because she has come to realize that he is the only man that she will ever love.

Billy Hamilton and his friend Dawson McCrae are working at Soda Creek on the construction of the Chilcotin sternwheeler. However, Billy’s gaze often wanders to the next camp with ill-concealed envy; it is where they are building the BC Express Company’s sternwheeler: the luxurious BX.

The Fraser River and the paddlewheelers that work on it are Billy’s first loves, but when he does think of romance, his thoughts are of the pretty and melancholy young prostitute, Posy Lane.

In 1910, many changes occur in the world, but like the death of King Edward and the arrival of Halley’s Comet, they have little effect on the people in the new rail-towns of Northern British Columbia. They are living in the ‘sunny’ Laurier years of expansion and optimism. These are the years when every dream seems possible.