Immediately we are transported to Dunbar, Scotland. It is a spring afternoon in 1849, and a boy is perched precariously on the pitched roof of a cottage. It is John Muir, valiantly, inching his way to the top. He shouts in his angry Scottish brogue. Immediately throngs of immigrants appear, belongings in hand, to the wharf of Glasgow.
Night falls and a fierce storm tosses the ship.
Young John emerges from behind a barrel and looks up at the mast. The ship lurches with another wave and John loses his grip and falls as the scene shifts to Fountain Lake, the Muir family farm in Wisconsin. John is lowered into a well to begin a day of digging as Daniel Muir strikes off on horseback to preach. Duncan, a neighboring farmer, checks on John's progress and gets no response to his hails. He immediately pulls John, unconscious from choke gas, out of the well, and berates Daniel for his parsimony, which almost killed his son.