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For 500 years people tried to find a passage through the Canadian Arctic in order to shorten the time-consuming sea route to Asia; most of them lost their lives in the attempt. One hundred years after the first successful navigation, the adventurer Arved Fuchs traverses the North-West Passage. His ship "Dagmar Aaen", an over 70-year-old, specially reinforced shark cutter, can rely neither on great engine power nor on special steel. Temperatures sinking to minus 40 degrees, storms and a maze of islands and ice fields make the 2,800 nautical miles of the North-West Passage a challenge even for the experienced adventurer Fuchs. Eventually, the expedition will take 14 months to reach its destination. In the first attempt the "Dagmar Aaen" has to turn round after being frozen into the ice and freed by an ice-breaker. In the second attempt the expedition very nearly fails when winter sets in too early. At the last moment Arved Fuchs manages to escape from the ice which is freezing solid and reaches his destination. A camera team accompanied Fuchs and his crew on board during the entire expedition. The film describes in fascinating pictures of the crew´s struggle against ice and storm and with magnificent shots of the almost unspoiled polar world how the dramatic operation succeeded at the last minute.