The Reclamation

A young woman in a remote mining town is scorned for a tragic mistake, but finds solace trapping furs in snowy woods and panning gold from swift mountain streams. Far from the din of World War II, draft-exempt miners dig for strategic metals under the watch of the War Production Board. Jolene befriends two other misfits among the isolated workers, who help her to discover within herself a rich vein of art and poetry. But even as she rebuilds her life a conspiracy of illegal mining collapses, entrapping those she loves. Jolene must choose between fleeing, and regretting all that she once knew, or to staying and regretting all that she could be. In the dark midwinter in an old prospector's cabin, she stokes a fire, washes blood from her hands, and makes a fateful decision. Jolene's story is reconstructed decades later by the son who never knew her. Geologist Harlan Pruitt has returned to the ghost town of Cinnabar to evaluate the re-opening of the old mines. By the secrets he uncovers in the crumbling shafts--the grisly evidence of passion and treachery--his mother finally comes to life for him, more human yet more heroic than he ever imagined.