When a young millwright from Oregon City loses his fianc? to another, he attempts to erase her memory by joining the Yukon gold rush. Motivated not by gold, but by his need to cut ties with the past, he stumbles into a solitary place of primal life-threatening, soul-stirring challenges that test his ability to survive. Deaths by accident, predator, and gunshot remind him of his vulnerability. After more than a year of solitary endurance, the forces that drew him there send him home to cope with pieces of a life gone awry. Changed, renewed, and humbled, he finds the pieces falling into place, leaving him to wonder what it was all about.