A Scottish family in the early 1800s spends six weeks on a ship bound for the Americas. Each member has vastly different experiences as they await their fate across the sea. Andrew is a child whose father tells him stories about America. Years later, he boards a boat with his father, sister, brother, pregnant wife, and two-year old son. He handles his ever-griping father with patience and silence, although he remembers that it was his father who begged them to make this voyage. Old James, Andrew’s father, finds nothing to enjoy about the journey or the prospect of going to America, although he had told his family throughout his life that he wanted to go. Agnes, Andrew’s wife, suffers through a painful childbirth on the ship. Luckily, a doctor is on board to help her through it, and they share an unusual amount of intimacy for doctor and patient. Mary, Andrew’s sister, is “nearly a dwarf” according to her father. She cared dearly for each of her brothers, before they grew up and became ashamed of her. Now, she cares for James, Andrew’s toddler son. Walter, Andrew’s brother, documents the boat's journey in his journal. While he does so, he befriends a lonely girl. At the end of the trip, the girl’s father asks Walter to come with them and be the girl’s companion, but Walter declines — he wants to seek a more adventurous life. The family finally makes it to Quebec. They spend their lives in the Americas, and then are buried together years later — with the exception of little James, who passed away within a month of the family’s arrival in Quebec.