Eleven-year-old Sam's first visit to the remote west coast of Vancouver Island is nothing like she'd expected. Her older cousins tease "the city kid" mercilessly, when they're not ignoring her altogether. She often finds herself left to her own devices. Still, the woods and beaches around Brackenwood Point offer plenty of room to explore. Then, one day, Sam comes face-to-face with a wild cougar and her two cubs, and her summer vacation suddenly gets much more exciting. Julie Lawson is the award-winning author of many books including Arizona Charlie and the Klondike Kid and Destination Gold. She gathers story ideas wherever she goes, whether she is circling the globe on a freighter, living in Pierre Berton's childhood home in Dawson City, or sitting in her own living room. "I heard the cry of a cougar once," Julie says. "It was the most unearthly sound I'd ever heard. I will never forget it." The next morning she found the cougar's paw prints in the soft earth of her backyard. A plaster mold of one of the prints is a prized possession to this day.