Carrie Ritter runs away to the wilds of Alaska with Bart McFee, a manly yet gentle fugitive from society who she has met through internet dating. Intent upon escaping her repetitive life in southern California where she has experienced one too many failed relationships, Carrie is shocked when she arrives at a tiny, wood-heated cabin with an outhouse set a daunting distance away amid a waist-high October snowfall. Forced to deal with sled dogs, wolves, sub-zero temperatures, blizzards, cabin fever, and an eccentric native Alaskan intruder, she finds surviving in her new world bewildering and uncomfortable. But the majestic scenery dazzles her and the rigors of frontier life give her a bracing sense of self-sufficiency and Carrie eventually falls in love with her cabin mate and the natural landscape that defines her new life until the suffocating winter darkness sets in and her struggle to survive begins in earnest.