In the late 1920's a fur trapper, Jimmie Allen, leaves 'down north' Canada for the first time in his life in order to find a wife. Working at a restaurant in Edmonton, Grasille Jansen dreams of the richer and more exciting lives she has read about in popular magazines as she goes about her work as a waitress. While serving Jimmie, Grasille realizes that Jimmie is a very unusual customer but definitely not a silent man. Words come readily to his tongue and his enthusiastic outpouring of exciting stories of his North (some true, some not) lead to an Othello-like wooing and a speedy marriage when Grasille is convinced that she will find her dream with Jimmie. Together, in a cabin they built together on the Quatre-Fourches River, the real drama of the story - loneliness - is fought out. Knit into this main strand you have the moving story of Susie, Jimmie's part-Indian friend and trapping partner, who was accepted as equal by whites and who refused to take treaty money - except once. He is memorable, even in defeat. Also we have the Cowdrays who run the inevitable, all-purpose store in Fort Chipewyan on the usual liberal, if not generous, credit terms. Grasille has no idyllic time as a trapper's wife and faces many difficulties. She is game and she wins through, with the aid of a remarkable not to say, dramatic, phenomenon of nature.