When researching my book on the Niagara Escarpment (Touring the Giant's Rib: A Guide to the Niagara Escarpment) I came across an account of four children who went missing in the Melancthon Swamp in the early 1830s. It was a huge tragedy for the emerging hamlet of Hornings Mills, something from which the inhabitants never recovered, and the hook upon which I hung my story.