At the height of the Great Depression, Faunce Ridge, a tiny village on the Minnesota-Canadian border, is labeled a rural slum by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal Resettlement Administration. Hometown boy, Emil Rousseau, is sent to photograph the poverty of his childhood neighbors to sell Congress on resettling them and other struggling farmers. Except that Faunce Ridge residents don't want to move.

Told from the perspective of Emil, his high school sweetheart, Rose, madam Sadie and bootlegger Magnus, Hand Me Down My Walking Cane speaks to the mystical pull of this harsh and beautiful place while bringing to vivid life the history of the borderland and the people who lived there.