Florent Boissonneault and his young wife Elise always had one dream: own a restaurant. When they meet a strange old man, Egon Ratablavasky, their dream become reality, but only to quick turn into a nightmare when they sadly discover they had been tricked by him, and lost everything. But their dream is not dead, and a strong desire of avenging soon bring them back in business, with the help of an homeless kid, a french cook and a friendly journalist. But the old man still had trick on for them his bag...
A young woman, living with her parents and siblings on a remote farm in harsh, picturesque northern Québec, has three suitors: a steady and unimaginative farmer, Eutrope, the Americanized and wealthy Lorenzo, who has sought his fortune in Boston, and François Paradis, a rough and virile logger who captures her heart despite the warnings of her parents and the village priest. For a year, marked by seasonal change in an atmosphere charged with the strangeness of Indians and the demons of the woods, we see Maria at work and prayer, struggling with decisions, choosing to stay in Canada, in love with François, seeking to change his rough behaviors, and dealing with extraordinary loss.
In a little village at the end of the 1890's, a young woman offends all the 'right-thinking' villagers by allowing men in her house in the absence of her husband. When he is found dead, all of the suspicion is directed towards the liberal woman. She is judged more for her morality then for the crime she is accused of. Her culpability is still a subject of debate today.
In 1942 even after a formal promise from the Liberal Party of Canada in the last election: "Never the Conscription", the Canadian Government vote a Conscription Law. In Quebec where the French population was mostly unanimous against the obligation to go to war, seen as a Great-Britain Government request, many young men fled to the woods or in clandestineness.