Radio operator Maria Wilson is transferred from Atlanta, Georgia, to the pipeline terminal in Valdez, Alaska. Her infant daughter, Joy, is left in the care of Maria’s parents. On the final leg of the trip, she meets a laborer known as “the Duke.” Maria is attempting to reunite with her estranged husband, Rob, who operates a small airline out of Valdez. Upon her arrival, Maria discovers that her position was filled two days earlier at the request of Mike Thompson, an oligarch who controls Valdez’s business community. At the Duke’s urging, Maria gets a bartending job at Thompson’s Klondike Club for $700 per week. The Duke also arranges for her lodgings and buys her dinner. The next evening at the Klondike Club, Maria meets Loretta, the new radio operator at the terminal. Loretta, a former prostitute, explains that Thompson, her lover, compelled her to accept the job, and she invites Maria to share her mobile home until she can find a permanent residence. When Rob enters the bar, Maria is happy to see him, but Rob disapproves of her employment in a saloon. Later, Rob is cold and unresponsive toward his girl friend, Lydia, when they are in bed together. The next day, when Maria moves into the trailer, she learns that Loretta has to supplement her income by prostituting herself, although her lover, Mike Thompson, is unaware of her “moonlighting.” Maria meets Rob at the airport, and while both regret their divorce, Maria does not believe that Rob is ready to resume the marriage. Her doubts are allayed after Rob takes her on a romantic flight over the Alaskan tundra. However, when Maria discovers Lydia in Rob’s home, she is hurt and disappointed, even though Rob has chosen her over Lydia. Maria tells Loretta that she wants to return to Atlanta and raise her infant daughter alone. Loretta advises her to be patient with Rob, and to inform him that he is a father. Maria and the Duke take a day trip to the Columbia Glacier, and are joined by alcoholic evangelist Johnny Monday. When Maria returns to the trailer, she finds Rob waiting for her, but they are still unable to reconcile. While Maria is at work, Loretta admits to Thompson that she is pregnant and demands that he marry her or she will leave Valdez. However, Thompson, reminds her of the sparse opportunities available to an aging prostitute and tells her to get an abortion. After he leaves, Loretta is despondent and performs the abortion herself, using a coat hanger. Later, Rob walks Maria home from work, and she begins to respond to his efforts to win her back, but when she enters the trailer, she is horrified by the sight of Loretta’s bloodied body in the trailer. After an ambulance removes the body, Rob and the Duke offer Maria comfort. Waiting outside the trailer is the Duke’s girl friend, a prostitute named Slimey Sue, who feels unworthy to be in the presence of a decent woman. Sometime later, Maria and Rob invite Sue and the Duke to dinner, where they learn that Sue is a former schoolteacher who came to Alaska in search of work to pay off her late father’s debts. Meanwhile, Thompson accepts a large sum of money to slow the progress of the pipeline. The next day, he threatens Maria with eviction, noting that he owns the trailer and everything in it, but Maria is not intimidated and freely expresses her low opinion of him. Thompson responds by slapping her, but Maria slaps him back. That night at the Klondike Club, Maria is panicked when she learns that Rob and a planeload of prostitutes are stranded in the wilderness, but a rescue party returns them to safety. Maria visits the hospital where Rob and his passengers are examined. When he presents Maria with an engagement ring, she accepts his proposal and tells him that he is the father of six-month-old daughter named Joy. Their outdoor wedding is attended by pipeline workers and prostitutes, and officiated by Johnny Monday. The Duke loans the couple his car for the honeymoon, and Maria, comparing the pipeline to historical monuments like the Egyptian pyramids and the Great Wall of China, coerces Rob to consummate their marriage inside a pipe segment. They continue their celebration that night at the Klondike Club. Meanwhile, the Duke is injured in an explosion at the terminal, which a pipeline worker, named “Mini-Guinea,” blames on Thompson. Later, Maria quits her job after seeing Thompson humiliate an elderly alcoholic woman. Maria meets Rob at a makeshift movie theater, where she admonishes him for wanting to maintain a business relationship with anyone as evil as Thompson. That night in bed, Maria tells Rob that she is having second thoughts about staying with him. The next day, when she visits the Duke in the hospital, he offers her the radio operator position at the terminal. Meanwhile, at the airport, Thompson tries to undermine Rob’s business by hijacking a freight shipment. Maria is called back to Atlanta upon learning of her father’s sudden demise. With no plans of returning to Valdez, she tells Rob that she came to Alaska in pursuit of a dream, but cannot sell her soul to achieve it. Rob argues that the survival of his business depends on compromise, but he will join Maria as soon as he can. After Maria’s departure, Rob learns that the Duke has left his hospital room in an attempt to thwart Thompson’s next act of sabotage. Rob arrives at the terminal to find the Duke facedown in the snow, and Thompson attempting to escape. Thompson is defeated in the ensuing fistfight, and Rob invites the Duke to deal the final blow. Later, Rob, Maria and Joy are reunited in Atlanta.