The memoirs of Bernard R. Desjardins (1857-1937) from growing up at Point Sec, Quebec in a shipbuilding family, to emigrating to Colorado in 1880 and learning to love the mountains as much as the sea. Desjardins experienced much in his lifetime and provides a vivid description of the Point Sec branch of the Desjardins family, life on the St. Lawrence River in the 1800's, and the building of the American West, specifically Colorado. The memoir includes engaging accounts of the Colorado Gold Rush, Cripple Creek fires, hardships faced as a contractor through economic cycles, and other adventures.