Maria, a halfbreed who lives in the Spring River, fifty miles north-west of Prince Albert, has a hard experience in her life as the generation of halfbreed. Her father has a European blood from his Grandpa and her mother is Indian, a native American. Therefore, Maria is neither a native woman of European nor Indian, instead, she is a halfbreed.
In her hometown, Maria lives with both halfbreed and immigrants or white people who mostly come from either Germany or Sweden. Shortly, in her childhood, she has known that her people can not live peacefully with white men because of the different identity and race. In this case, white men tend to do an arbitrary action toward halfbreed such as seducing the halfbreed woman.
Her life runs well in her childhood although they live in poverty. Nevertheless, more burdens come when her mother died when Maria is still twelve years old. As a result, she has to run the family work and acts as a mother for her seven young siblings. Furthermore, she has to marry in the age of fifteen to avoid her siblings to be put in an orphanage. Nevertheless, her effort to take care of her siblings is not successful because her non-responsible husband, a white man, reports her to the welfare authorities which finally take her young siblings into a foster care. Then, her husband deserts her in Vancouver and starts from it she begins to drink alcohol. She also often has a relationship with some men without marriage and she has three children then.
She ever tries to commit suicide twice and because of that she is hospitalized in anonymous hospital. After recovering, she starts to think of her Cheechum’s (her Great Grandma’s) statement about life and about white men and Halfbreed’s relationship. In the end of the story, she is successful to meet with her father, Cheechum, and her young siblings.