The Dream Weavers

Wind Walker has dreamed for seasons of a better place for his starving tribe. Once proud Bison Hunters, they must find another way to live in order to survive. Driven north by drought, they search for a place they can claim as their own. A place where the woodland tribes will not try to enslave or kill them. They reach the shores of Lake Superior, where tales of monsters and evil spirits keep their enemies from settling the apparently barren and cold land. They are the First Americans to claim this new land. The Dream Weavers portrays the life and death struggle of these First Americans while weaving in an abundance of adventure and romance. The novel takes you on a journey of discovery where Wind Walker's people learn not only to survive but thrive. By canoe they travel along the edge of Lake Superior, where they are the first to discover copper in the Great Lakes Region. They experience the very edge of the continental glaciers north of Isle Royal where they see the last of the Wooly Mammoths grazing on the tundra. The story is set at the beginning of the Archaic period, more than 8000 years ago, before copper was first discovered in the Great Lakes region. The dependence on large animals is all but gone and the use of plants is becoming more important. In this new land they discover an abundance of food, friendly spirits to guide and protect them and most of all copper, the wonderful metal that led to the later development of the Wisconsin Copper Culture. The People struggle to understand the secrets held stubbornly in the raw metal. Only Wind Walker seems able to make the valuable copper tools that give them an advantage over their enemies, an advantage which they must work hard to keep secret.