In 1920s Oslo, Henrik Larsen, an aspiring poet, leaves his girlfriend Gertrude to spend a year as a trapper in Greenland. There he shares a small winter hut with the station master Randbæk and a scientist named Holm. The living space becomes cramped and tense as Randbæk mocks Larsen’s poetry, his violin playing, and his kindness to the sled dogs. Yet Larsen soon proves himself capable, excelling at several demanding tasks, which only fuels Randbæk’s growing irritation. When Larsen discovers a letter from Gertrude rejecting the marriage proposal and hinting at infidelity, Randbæk taunts him, trash-talking both the relationship and the man who dares to dream.
Faced with dwindling supplies, Randbæk and Holm decide to kill one dog to stretch their resources, though Larsen objects. Randbæk deliberately wounds the dog to spite Larsen, and a heated confrontation erupts between Larsen and Randbæk. Holm steps in to stop violence, striking a brief truce. To repair the rift, Randbæk hosts a Christmas feast for the trio, but the old resentments surface as another argument about the dogs erupts, and Randbæk destroys the decorations in a fit of anger. Holm, disgusted by the dark mood and the cruelty he sees, renounces his friendship with Randbæk and leaves the station alone by sled.
A few days later, Randbæk’s drunken recklessness leads to a lantern toppling and a roaring fire that roars through the cabin. With no shelter left, the two men press on toward a distant settlement by sled dogs. Randbæk’s stubbornness to share the work and his brutal whipping of Larsen’s face escalate the tension, culminating in Larsen throwing him from the sled and the two exchanging gunfire. When Larsen later discovers Holm’s sled wrecked in a ravine, he yields to Randbæk’s lead and they agree to work together to survive.
Larsen makes a perilous crossing of the ice on the fjord, despite Randbæk’s warnings, and tumbles into the freezing water. The dogs pull him to safety, and he finds solace in the prow of a wrecked ship, where he regains consciousness to see Randbæk have saved his life by building a fire. The fragile balance is shattered when Randbæk begins brutally beating Larsen’s prized dog for food, prompting Larsen to shoot him repeatedly. As Randbæk dies, he reveals a dark past—he once murdered a lover of his wife—and, in a chilling line, refers to the act as “the end of love,” a sentiment he predicts Larsen will come to mirror.
Back in Oslo, Larsen asserts that Randbæk died in the fire and is reunited with [Gertrude], who now agrees to marry him. As she prepares to shave him, he begins to weep, leaving a quiet, unsettled tension in his newly restored romance and the sense that the harsh winter has etched something difficult to bear into his future.
