The Road to Winona is a family history - the story of late 19th century immigrants from Finland to the mining and lumber industries of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is a story of resilience -- from the need to leave one's homeland to the challenges of settling in a new country. The Road to Winona is a story of grit, grace, and the quiet power of a woman who refuses to let her world disappear.
When the copper mine closes and families abandon the town, Marija stays. Rooted to the land and to the people who remain, she builds a life where others see only loss. Through homesteading hard ground, raising a strong family, and helping establish a lumber mill that gives the town new purpose, Marija becomes the steady heart of a fading community. Her strength is not loud or boastful-it's found in work-worn hands, shared meals, and the resolve to keep going when survival itself feels like an act of defiance.
At once intimate and sweeping, The Road to Winona honors a woman whose resilience holds her family together and whose courage transforms an abandoned place into a living home.
