Twisting Trails is a unique young adult novel about two teenagers from different cultures who meet on the northwest frontier during the heyday of the fur trade (1831-1837), and their adventures encompass famous Minnesotans from that era. Alexander is a fictional Fort Snelling soldier who meets Seth Eastman, Henry Schoolcraft, Samuel and Gideon Pond, Henry Sibley, Joseph Nicollet, and Dred Scott. Angelique Reaume is a fictional Metis daughter to a French-Canadian voyageur and Ojibwe mother, who meets George Bonga, Pierre Bottineau, Joseph Renville, and Lawrence Taliaferro. The teenagers travel up the Mississippi, discovering how to make maple syrup, collect wild rice and hunt bison.