After experiencing a traumatic event in Igloolik (an Inuit hamlet in Foxe Basin, Qikiqtaaluk Region in Nunavut), Uyarak leaves her community and family in Nunavut to live in Montréal. When Covid-19 lockdowns close off the Canadian Arctic from the rest of the world, Uyarak is further separated from her closest friend, eldest sister, Saqpinak. This extreme situation blurs the lines of both the fictional lives of the sisters, and the non-fiction lives of the film’s directors, Lucy Tulugarjuk and Carol Kunnuk, who play the sisters.

Two isolated families meet for a summertime celebration. Food is abundant and the future seems bright, but Ningiuq, a wise old woman, sees her world as fragile and moves through it with a pervasive sense of dread. Ningiuq and her grandson Maniq are dropped off on a remote island, where, every year, the family dries the catch and stores it for winter. The task is soon finished. As summer turns to fall, they wait in vain for the others to pick them up.