In 1926, Aileen Gallaher, a beautiful young woman, runs away from her difficult life in California, traveling alone by train to Seattle, then by steamship to Valdez, Alaska, where she is met by trapper Clyde C. "Slim" Williams and travels deep into the Copper River Valley.  There, Aileen finds an even more difficult life.

Williams had stayed behind after the Klondike gold rush, living off the land.  Although she is half his age, Aileen finds happiness in their raw existence spent in isolated cabins, facing the unrelenting challenges of wilderness survival.  The fierce cold is worse than Aileen ever imagined, but she comes to love Slim and the Copper River country.

The only thing missing is female companionship.  Enter Samme, Aileen's irrepressible teenange sister.  Sisters reveals their emotional coming of age in a region remote even by Alaska standards.  Yet, the sisters live a charmed life.

Samme Gallaher was 92 and living in Thousand Oaks, California when Sisters was published.  Aileen Gallaher died just short of her 89th birthday in 1994.