The son of a wealthy farmer loves a simple maid, for which he's booted out of the house by his father.

Synnöve lives with her parents at the farm Solbakken on a sunny hill. Thorbjörn, who lives at Granliden in the shadow of a big mountain, often looks wistfully up to Solbakken. As teenagers they meet and fall in love. Another boy, Knud Nordhaug, is also yearning for Synnöve.

An itinerant sailor meets a beautiful girl on the road and takes a job with her father, the Skipper of an Arctic sealer. He must prove himself stronger than his rival among the glaciers and ice floes.