This meditative French-Canadian film tells the story of a young woman's search for the father she has never known. Marie Chapelaine (Carole Laure) grew up in a remote area of Quebec without ever knowing her father, a lumberjack. She moves to Montreal, settles in there with a job as a topless dancer and begins her search for him. Eventually, with the help of his former mistress, they find the lumber camp he was working in, only to discover that he was killed in a labor dispute.