Set against the cold natural beauty of Michigan's Upper Penninsula, "Bone Soup and a Lapland Wizard "is the tale of two retired loggers: Rakko, the irascible bachelor - part wizard, it seems, and part madman - and his friend Paavo, old before his years and struggling with his love for his wife and adopted son. To save his friend, Rakko devises a plan to return to Finland, and the pair set sail across Lake Superior in a makeshift Viking whaler. Told in the terse, lyric style of the Scandanavian masters, "Bone Soup and a Lapland Wizard "is the story of conflict between the Old World and the New, the mythic and the modern.