Morag is a 47-year-old author living in a cabin in Ontario. She awakens one morning to a note from her teenage daughter explaining she's left to find her roots. The girl is the product of Morag's affair with a Metis man, someone half European and half of First Nations ancestry. Struggling to figure out her own identity, Pique has undertaken a sudden pilgrimage back to her father's people. Morag remembers when she faced a similar dilemma of identity when she was her daughter's age. She begins looking for old photos from her childhood.
Flashback. When she was very young, Morag was fostered by Christie and Prin Logan after her own parents died of polio. Accustomed to a much more suburban life, Morag despises the Logans simple lifestyle. They aren't educated people and struggle to pay the bills. Christie is the town "scavenger," or trash collector and a brilliant storyteller. Recognizing Morag's maladapted sense of self worth, he begins telling her tons of (invented) stories about her ancestors. Piper Gunn, the Scottsman, is his favorite, based upon the historical figure Archie MacDonad. Morag doesn't know the stories are pretend, so she grows up with a sense of heroism, confidence, and belonging. If her ancestors were such astonishing people, then she will be fine.
Sick of living in podunk Canada, Morag moves to Winnipeg for college as soon as she's able. After graduation she marries one of her professors, Brooke Skelton. Unfortunately the marriage is not what she hoped because he is a jealous, controlling man who discourages her writing career and doesn't want children. When Morag happens to run into an old friend, Jules "Skinner" Tonnerre, she invites him home for dinner. Brooke insults Jules, telling him to leave. Morag is so offended by her husband's vile temper that she leaves with Brooke and has an affair with him. For three weeks she has sex with him without protection in order to get pregnant. She succeeds, and Brooke immediately files for divorce.
Although Jules loves Morag, he does not stay with her consistently. He stops in every once in a while to spend time with baby Pique, but he's facing his own identity crisis. Being Metis, he feels compelled to step into his ancestors' shoes, but he doesn't quite understand what that means to him. Eventually he leaves for good to pursue his destiny. Morag and Pique move to England, hoping for acceptance, but they have no luck. They move back to Canada, in an isolated little log cabin. Morag make a pilgrimage to Scotland one year, but she returns home convinced that her true ancestry is Canadian, at least in spirit. She visits her aged foster father, Christie, and thanks him for being such a good father to her and for his wonderful stories.
In the end, the narrative returns to the established author, Morag. Pique has returned. She and Morag settle their ongoing disputes and restore peace. Finally Morag as the closure she needs to finish her long-awaited novel.
