The two major characters in The Hour of the Wolf are Jake, the boy from "the Outside," and Kamina, the fifteen-yearold Athabaskan Indian girl. Both have in common that they are rebelling against their world.

Jake, failing to fulfill the high expectations of a father he is never able to please, has tried suicide as a way out, and for that reason is sent to his relatives in Alaska as a chance to get away from home and its problems. Here, for the first time, he is accepted for what he is, and feels free from the burden of his father's disapproval and his mother's emotional coldness. Yet the guilt of repeatedly failing at whatever he tries, even botching his own suicide, still follows him. When he meets Danny, a star quarterback and a seemingly successful and uncomplicated native student, a quick friendship grows...