When the humiliation and grief of his eldest son's shooting rampage and subsequent suicide threatens to pull him under, Rasmus leaves his family and tight-knit community and heads into Greenland's bleak landscape. As he journeys forth aimlessly on an old dogsled, he eventually finds solace in the form of a mystical hermit.

A young teacher, Eva Nygaard, arrives in Greenland from Denmark to surprise her fiancé, the Doctor Erik Halsøe, but is crushed to find he has not waited for her and he is about to be married to his assisting nurse. Eva travels to a small fishing village to await the next ship back to Denmark. There she enters into a tense and often confrontational relationship with Jens, a quiet moody Dane who manages a trading company outpost. Meanwhile, Jens is trying to persuade a Greenlander named Pavia to become a company fisherman, despite Pavia's fear of alienating his fellow villagers and upsetting the spirit, Qivitoq.