After the suicide of a snowboarder friend, his brother, Brandon, takes the depressed Nelson Nagarauk home to their tradition-conscious Inuit family at 69 degrees north. Brandon persuades him to accompany him on a ice-bear hunt, but Nelson changes his mind. On his way back, he finds a half-frozen Russian woman from a nearby weather station. He warms her up, but she seems to be very sick, otherwise. The next day, the woman is taken away by helicopter without a word of thanks. Later, on TV, a different, healthy woman is shown. What really happened? With Nelson's help, the ambitious journalist Virginia Ranks starts an investigation in which Nelson is not only confronted with a military intrigue but also with his traditional roots that he ridiculed before.