Donald Evwhak, an eskimo living in Alaska, embarks on a three day trek through the hills surrounding his village, hunting with his rifle. As he ventures home having only killed several birds and a seal, the middle-aged hunter envies the young men who can travel over the hills with ease and who will have already returned to their families with huge quantities of meat. Evwhak is not yet an old man, but the journey is hard for him, and his coughing often scares away any nearby animals. Evwhak remembers learning to hunt with his father when he was a young boy, but this tradition is now less common in his village. He fears that he will not be able to teach his sons Timothy and Daniel to hunt as his father taught him.

Evwhak looks at the stars and begins to see one he does not recognize that moves and then vanishes as he watches the sky. He knows that stars do not move and wonders what kind of light this might be, remembering the white men who came to their village with radios and telescopes and the airplanes that flew above them. The hunter rests that night but tries not to sleep in case the light returns or something appears that explains its origin. Though nothing unusual occurs during the night, in the morning the man sees a black object in the water about a thousand yards from him, and when the sun shines on it it sinks and disappears into the water. Evwhak at first plans to tell the white man who came to his village, Mr. Andrew, that he believes he may have seen a submarine. Mr. Andrew told the village when he arrived to report to him immediately should they see anything unusual. However, Evwhak is worried that Mr. Andrew will not believe him, since he has never seen a submarine and did not report it sooner. So Evwhak decides not to say anything, comforted that the object is now out of sight. He does not even tell his wife Bernadette when he returns home from the hunt.

Now back in his shed, Evwhak sees the place where his sons slept before they were taken away on a boat by the Coast Guard. Evwhak remembers when he was sent on the boat, known as a cutter, when he was a boy. There he made animals out of clay and learned about Christianity. When Evwhak goes to the store to buy tobacco, the men there mock his hunting, laughing at the small size of the seal he brought home.

That night, Evwhak goes back to the place where he rested the night before and sees more strange lights, this time moving on the surface of the water. He then sees a figure emerge from the water, a man with hands and feet that look like a seal's flippers. He wonders if it is a spirit, angry at him for killing the seal on his hunt. The figure removes its flippers, however, and Evwhak realizes that it is just an ordinary man. The man does not see the hunter watching him and begins to venture away from the beach. Evwhak follows the man through the night and into the day.

Suddenly a snow storm approaches and Evwhak struggles to see, but he still follows the man by tracking his bootprints. Evwhak sees the sea-man struggling in the snow and decides to call out to him. The man, frightened by the stranger behind him, begins to shoot at Evwhak with his pistol. Evwhak hides in the snow, avoiding the bullets, and continues to follow the man as he returns to the shore and into the sea. Now very weak, Evwhak grows angry at the man for intruding on their island and shoots him in the water, imagining he is a seal. Evwhak is too weak to return home and lies in the snow, coughing up blood. The next morning the men from the village find him and take him back home to Bernadette, but before long Evwhak passes away.