In 1908, thirteen-year-old Anya, a Chukchi shaman, will do anything to protect the sled dogs she has raised so she joins forces with sixteen-year-old seafarer Rune Johansson to make a stand against phantom predators hiding in the Arctic West as a powerful ice storm brews.

Deafened at a young age, Amelia Polley is left to grow up in frontier territory at the Colorado Institute for the Education of Mutes, and she is determined to live the life she dreamed for herself before becoming deaf.