The film, starring Franco Nero, Fernando Rey and Virna Lisi, gained great commercial success and generated an official and several unofficial sequels.

[1][2][3] Set in the year 1896 in the Yukon Wilderness, the film opens when Charlie (Daniel Martin) an Aboriginal Canadian fur trader, discovers his young son Mitsah (Missaele) attempting to befriend a wolf, he scares the beast away, believing it to be too wild and dangerous.

Mitsah, while strolling through the woods at night to meet his friend, falls through the thin ice of a frozen lake and the animal, a wolf/dog cross breed, raises the alarm.

The group, after arriving at a riverside port below the snow line, are introduced to Jason Scott (Franco Nero), a writer traveling to Dawson City in search of a story.

Sister Evangeline has already encountered corruption in the form of the town's alcoholic priest Father Oatley (Fernando Rey), whose interest in her money is highly suspect.

Scott and Kurt arrive on the scene just as Smith's henchmen disperse where the assembled townspeople, gripped with fear of retribution, claim to have seen nothing.

Soon, everything starts to go wrong for Beauty Smith when he tries to persuade Krista to accompany him away from Dawson City for he is planning to skip town with his ill-gotten money, trailing unpaid promissory notes behind him.

Meanwhile, Chester (Daniele Dublino), the Smith assassin who murdered Charlie, is freed from his jail cell by a corrupt Mountie (Janos Bartha).

Beauty Smith and his lead henchman, Hall, then sneak into the mission hut and take Mitsah hostage, and shoot Father Oatley dead as he attempts to stop them.

The following day, the remainder of the townspeople, including Scott, Kurt, Sister Evangelina, and Mitsha sail away from the abandoned town down the river in a steamboat as a tearful Mitsah is distraught over the loss of both his father and beloved hound.