This enjoyable enlightening read is perhaps best summarized on the book's back cover.  "Hired to promote the federal government's assimilation of American Indians, Arnold and Reed instead found themselves adapting to the world they entered, a complex and contentious territory of Anglo miners and Karuk families."

       "Arnold and Reed's account of their experiences, shows their irreverence  towards Victorian ideals of womanhood, recounts their respect towards and friendship with the Karuks and offers a rare portrait of women's western experience in this era. Writing with self deprecating humor, the women recall their misadventures as women 'in a white man's country' and as whites in Indian country.  A story about crossing cultural divides, The Land of the Grasshopper Song also documents Karuk resilience despite seemingly insurmountable odds." Additional material has now been added by historians to give context.

       The fact that this book has been a best seller for so long speaks to the relevance of a time and place that in many ways is still with us.