Based on the book by Vilhelm Moberg (published in 1949) depicting a few people emigrating from Sweden to the United States in the 1840 - early 1850.

Karl Oskar is a poor farmer in Småland in the mid-1800s, and when the harvest fails and hunger rages, he decides to travel to the promised land of America together with his wife Kristina and their remaining children into an uncertain and unknown future.