America

The United States of America is the broad strokes, national setting of the story. America's history of colonizing its western regions, and exploiting the natural resources there, is an important, implied subtext of how it explores the relationship between humanity and nature. There is also a mythic cultural narrative of the rugged, lone, woodsman that plays into the character, identity, and story of protagonist Robert Grainier.

The Early-to-Mid 20th Century

The narrative moves back and forth through the first fifty or sixty years of the 20th Century. But while there are occasional glimpses of, or occasional references to, the 1950's and 60's, most of the action is set in the century's earlier decades when, as noted below, the area in which Grainier makes his home was still wild and untamed.

Idaho

The American state of Idaho is the primary setting for much of the narrative's action. At the...