Hugh "Huge" Newman, a library school dropout, banishes himself to a subarctic mining town for the winter. There, he discovers a whole world in miniature, with two sides, management and union, in perpetual war against each other, the leading combatants strangely reminiscent of problematic figures from Western history. Almost immediately, the two warring sides work to lure the reluctant Huge from his bunkhouse and his books and into the frontline on their battles.