When a new teacher comes to their remote Alaskan town, ten-year-old Frederika and her classmates believe that this teacher will leave as quickly as all the rest, but Miss Agnes is different.
The death of their drunken father strands ten-year-old Toughboy and his younger sister at a remote fishing cabin on the Yukon River near Ruby, Alaska, where they spend a summer trying to cope with dwindling food supplies and hostile wildlife.