Fourteen-year-old Allison Atwood is traveling to visit her mother in Alaska when her plane crashes near the Arctic Circle. The pilot is killed and Allison is alone in a wilderness of ice and snow. Thankfully she"s rescued by an I-upiat trapper who takes her to his village. Here she is the "ice worm," the outsider, far removed from her life in Southern California. But as time passes, the villagers change Allison"s life, and she changes theirs as well.