Anna Silowski, highly educated, driven and successful, works as a curator in a prestigious palaeontological museum; Scott Macleod dropped out of school, has a confused relationship with his Native roots, and an alcoholic father in tow. After a day's prospecting leads Anna to make an extraordinary discovery in a remote part of British Columbia, the tensions below the surface of her successful career are exposed. Anna has carried for years terrifying knowledge that she feels she must keep secret, and now is pushed toward breakdown. She finds herself unexpectedly dependent on Scott, and recruits him to help on the excavation of her find. Scott is soon way out of his depth, and the excavation itself teeters on the edge of disaster.