This film shows the development of the Abitibi region of northern Québec, told in terms of the toil and sweat of the settlers who, in the 1930s, fled the depression-stricken St. Lawrence lowlands. With axe and saw, they carved homesteads out of the wilderness. Their hardships, hardly less than those encountered by the first Canadian pioneers, are recounted. How the forest gradually gave way to farm plots is shown. Twenty years later the village of St. Pierre is surrounded by agricultural lands, showing little trace of the labour they cost.