In 1860s Lapland, gold diggers Jakob Ervast and Nils Lepistö, who previously worked in California, embark on an arduous journey towards the north. The friends find gold at the first excavation site, which Kittilä's crown prince Konrad Planting and Edvard Manninen also start looking for.

Writer and psychiatrist Oscar Parland (1912-1997) narrates this nostalgic story about his early childhood memories and fantasies. Five-year-old Riki spends the summer of 1917 at his cosmopolitan family's summer house by the Gulf of Finland. Surrounded by other children and eccentric adults who speak Swedish, German and Russian, Riki also encounters some fantastic animal characters no one else is able to see.