Brian Robeson, thirteen, boards a small Cessna to visit his father in Canada. He carries a hatchet his mother gave him. The pilot gives him a brief flying lesson, then suffers a heart attack.

Brian keeps the plane airborne as long as possible but cannot find a landing strip. Fuel runs out. He crashes the Cessna into a lake in the remote Canadian wilderness and survives.

Brian spends his first night in the wilderness. He is attacked by a porcupine in the dark, learns the value of shelter, and begins to understand that self-pity solves nothing.

Brian explores his immediate environment. He finds and eats berries that make him violently ill. He identifies the terrain and begins to understand the scale of his isolation.

Brian methodically attempts to start a fire using his hatchet and the rock wall. After hours of failure, he succeeds. Fire becomes shelter, protection, signal, and psychological anchor.

Brian develops systematic food sources: raspberries, fish, and eventually fool's birds. Each success is preceded by failure and close observation. He begins to read the wilderness as a text.

Brian is attacked by a bull moose and badly injured. A tornado then destroys his shelter and fire. He rebuilds everything from zero, having learned that the wilderness doesn't hate him — it simply is.

The tornado has surfaced the plane's tail section. Brian builds a raft, dives into the wreck, and retrieves a survival pack containing food, equipment, and a rescue transmitter he accidentally activates. A bush pilot arrives within hours.