Chapter 1 provides character background and the setting for the novel. Gabe Rogers, the protagonist and narrator, is on his way to Yellowknife, the capital of Canada’s Northwest Territories, to live with his father. Previously, he lived with his grandparents in San Antonio, Texas. Gabe meets Clint, the bush pilot who is supposed to fly him to Yellowknife. Clint is young and friendly but reveals that his plane was taken to help fight forest fires so they will be driving 600 miles to Yellowknife instead. As Gabe and Clint drive north, Clint tells Gabe about the Northwest Territories and how the winter season is called “sledgehammer” because “the cold and the darkness, that’s the hammer, and the land, that’s the anvil” (4). Clint also tells Gabe about how people sometimes mysteriously disappear or die on the Nahanni River, and Gabe reveals that “two months later, Clint would be dead—on the Nahanni. And I would watch it happen” (6).

Chapter 2 begins with Gabe being in his dorm room at the school he will be attending in Yellowknife. His father works at a remote drill site and only gets a break every fourth week, so Gabe does not get to see him a lot.