Fall 2024 The BookFest Second Place Award for Young Adult Historical Fiction

For decades, mountain men told tales of the exotic geography surrounding the source of the Yellowstone River, and Jubilee Walker, to the dismay of his fiancée, Nelly Boswell, can't resist the opportunity to see it for himself. When Jubil joins an expedition to explore the region, he and his companions brave an unforgiving wilderness to find that the truth is even stranger than the legends.

But a year later, when Jubil returns with a survey crew, he finds ruthless men exploiting the region for profit. Will Jubil's commitment to preventing the despoilment of Yellowstone's geographical wonders get him killed?

Based on events of the 1870 Washburn Expedition and the 1871 surveys by Dr. Ferdinand Hayden and Captain John Barlow, the second installment of the Jubilee Walker series chronicles events leading up the passage of the bill that designated Yellowstone as America's first national park.