On Thanksgiving night in a mountain town, a man and his wife Susan are visiting their friends Ann and Roger. The power goes out, and Ann begins telling a story about when she worked as a dog trainer in Canada's Saskatchewan province 20 years ago. Through the summer and fall, she would train hunting dogs to point birds, and in the winter, she would return the dogs to their owner, Gray Owl.

One day while trying to find water for the dogs, Gray Owl falls through the ice. In trying to save him, Ann also falls down the hole and is surprised to find that she does not encounter water below. The large basin has been drained and the thin layer of ice above has frozen over it. The passage beneath the ice ceiling is warm, so Ann and Gray Owl bring the dogs down into it and begin to explore.

A mystical element begins here— under the passage there is a warm breeze, and the gas they discover creates "explosions of brilliance". Nature seems to somehow emit hope within this ice passage. The dogs point snipe at birds flying above the ice ceiling, and Ann and Gray Owl follow their lead to find the shore.

Susan interrupts the story to ask if Ann and Gray Owl ever had an intimate relationship, and Ann says no. Ann concludes her telling of the story by describing how she and Gray Owl finally return to Gray Owl's cabin. Ann goes to her own home the next day.

Gray Owl and the dogs have since died of old age. The narrator reflects on how Ann is likely the only person who knows about this under-ice passage, and wonders if there is such a sense of hope somewhere below them now, too.