Eliza Gadd crosses the Great Plains by handcart with her Mormon husband on the journey from their native England to a new home in the Rocky Mountains. Baline Mortensen, a nine-year old Dane, is a member of the handcart company as well. Together they suffer unimaginable deprivations. Based on the true story of the Mormon pioneers in the Willie Handcart Company of 1856, who leave for the Rocky Mountains too late in the season and are stranded on the plains in the early onset of the coldest winter in US history.