The story centers on the Stamper family, a hard-headed logging clan in the coastal town of Wakonda, on the Oregon coast, in the early 1960s. The union loggers in Wakonda go on strike in demand of the same pay for shorter hours in response to the decreasing need for labor. The Stampers, however, own and operate a small family business independent of the unions and decide to continue work as well as supply the regionally owned mill with all the timber the laborers would have supplied had the strike not occurred. The rest of the town is outraged.