Russel is a 14-year-old Inuit boy who lives with his father in the Alaskan Arctic. They live in a village of government houses in the winter and move to fishing camps in the summer. Russel’s mother left when he was young, so he grew up with his father, who has embraced the outside culture brought to his village by white missionaries at the expense of traditional Inuit ways. Russel loves his father, but he is dissatisfied with his life in the village and despises the destruction of Inuit tradition that has come with imported snowmachines and the introduction of Christianity. Russel hates his father’s cough, brought on by imported cigarettes, and although he tries to understand Jesus, the idea does not make sense to him or bring him answers to life’s big questions. He is bored and frustrated, searching for something but not sure exactly what. Russel feels his life should go in a different direction to his father’s, so at his father’s suggestion Russel moves in with Oogruk, an Inuit who still lives in “the old way.”

After guidance from Oogruk, Russel realizes that what he is yearning for is a deeper connection to the land and nature and to live life in the traditional Inuit ways.