Elliot Straive is a college professor who has left the evils of civilization behind to raise his son Eric in the purity of the Canadian wilderness. James Heatherton sends Mark Grant to get the mining rights to Straive's land as vast deposits of iron ore have been discovered there. Grant arrives as the elder Straive lies dying and has written a final note to his absent son. Grant tears off the portion of the letter with Straive's signature and forges a concession to the mining rights above the signature. Heatherton, dissatisfied with the unwitnessed signature of a dead man, decides to to himself to get Eric Straive to sign the concession. He sends his family on ahead on vacation. The family hires Eric as a guide, thinking him to be a mere backwoods barbarian. Eric and Heatherton's daughter Floria fall in love, but the relationship falters when she confesses that she has lied to him about why they are there. Grant returns upon the scene and tries to force Eric to sign.

Flighty Helen Halverson decides that she wants to marry Big Jim McKenzie, the boss of the logging camp her father owns, after he is temporarily blinded after he crashes his toboggan into a tree in order to avoid hitting Helen. She convinces her cousin Adele--who is actually also in love with Jim--to get him to propose. Jim's sight returns and he and Helen marry, but on the day their child is to be born, he goes blind again. Frustrated by being married to a blind man, Helen falls in love with his assistant Jean Du Bray. Complications ensue.