The Point of No Return

Birth of a Colony-The story of Louis and Marie Rollet Hebert

⚓️ The Point of No Return: Birth of a Colony
Before there was Quebec, there was a dream—and the frozen reality of Acadia.

The year is 1606. Louis and Marie Rollet Hébert have staked everything on the mercurial vision of explorer Samuel de Champlain: to build a permanent French presence on the shores of North America. They are not merely colonists; they are pioneers of a hope that has not yet taken root.

Leaving the comforts of Paris behind, Louis voyages into a treacherous unknown, landing first at the fledgling Port Royal settlement in Nova Scotia. Marie prepares the family for the final voyage of their family. This is a world of brutal firsts: the crushing isolation of a North American winter, the struggle to coax life from frozen soil, and the precarious politics of survival alongside Champlain and the Indigenous peoples of the Wabanaki Confederacy.

Louis, the apothecary, fights to keep the settlement alive against the ravages of scurvy and starvation, while Marie, the gardener, risks everything to learn new ways to plant a civilization where only wilderness exists. Every dawn is a gamble. Every decision is a matter of life or death.

This definitive, newly re-envisioned edition of Sharon DesRuisseaux’s gripping historical novel reveals the untold story of the French family that dared to step across the chasm—the true, arduous beginning that led to New France.

Discover the courage of Quebec's early ancestor, Louis Hébert, in the freezing cradle of what would become Canada. They are known as the Family That Planted a Nation.