Sigurd, the son of a hard-hearted, feared and hated consul, cannot have the girl he loves - because her mother is a Lapp girl - so he goes as a stowaway on "Vesle Kari" to the west ice of Greenland. Here the ship sinks, and only Sigurd and another young man, Lorens, make it ashore. The two eventually get on each other's nerves so much in the desolate north that Sigurd kills Lorens in self-defense.