This is the true story of a struggling graduate going to teach in a Yup'ik village next to the Bering Sea. She leaves her home and her newfound love in Montana to pursue her lifelong dream to teach. While embarking on her career, exploring the mountains in Alaska seems like the perfect adventure.

Instead, she finds rejection as a teacher and a painful acceptance that she is still the student and an explorer of a vast, dark tundra and an intimidating sea.

In the heat of the Yup'ik's steam huts and the witness of their family life, her inner workings realize a renewing faith and acceptance of her place and where she belongs.