Blanche, daughter of Emilie Bordeleau, leaves her small French-Canadian town and large family to go and live with her married sister and study medicine in Montreal, Canada. As it is the early 1930's, women are not allowed to become doctors and practice medicine. Blanche completes her nursing studies, then accepts a position in the far off Abitibi region in northern Quebec where a lack of doctors allows her the freedom to treat patients as any real doctor would. Here she goes through the heart ache of dealing with the stubborn attitudes of the chauvinistic pioneers. She comes head to head with a crooked logging boss and falls in love.