Because of an agreement his alcoholic father makes with a circus, 15-year-old Eric begins a long journey south from Alaska with the huge Kodiak bear he raised from a cub.
Mike Donovan, a mysterious trapper, rescues Joel Rogers from wolves in the Alaskan arctic. They head for the nearest town two hundred miles away pursued by killers with nothing to lose.
A portrait of the land and people of wilderness Alaska presented through the experiences of an orphan whose year of decisions, responsibilities, and growth help him to accept the future.
