Lisa, Book 3: The Trouble with Gold

Susan Merskey is freelance writer in London, Ontario.

It is 1863, and the fortunes of Lisa and the McNaughtons are looking up.
The gold nugget that Lisa discovered will pay for her family to be
reunited with her in the mining town of Cameronton. She, Archie, and Mr.
Wattie have staked their claim. They have also staked their hopes on
discovering more gold. However, trouble looms when another miner, the
fierce-looking Samuel Stokes, insists that both the claim and Lisa’s
nugget belong to him. Stokes is a bully and Lisa is frightened of him.
But she is sure that he has no claim to her gold, and she is not going
to give it up without a fight.

It was relatively rare for women and children to be out in the gold
fields, and as Galloway points out, Lisa would have been unusual for her
time. But her story is well told and moves swiftly. It’s interesting
to note that Lisa never loses sight of her primary goal—to put aside
enough money to reunite her family.

The Trouble with Gold is the third Lisa book in the Our Canadian Girl
series, which chronicles her adventures in the Cariboo Gold Rush in the
1860s. While the books can be read independently, the period covered in
the three books together is short (less than two years), and readers
would benefit from reading all three together. Recommended.