Boys' college in eastern Quebec at the end of the 1940s. Brother Jean is not a teacher like the others. He wants to interest his students in the subject and to achieve this, he conducts archaeological excavations with his students aimed at proving the establishment of a Viking colony (Vinland) on the coast of the Saint Lawrence. The superiors of his congregation do not appreciate his unconventional ways of teaching. Without knowing it, Brother Jean will have a significant impact on the lives of his students, particularly in that of Émile, a young man who is having difficulty at school and who would prefer to abandon his studies to go work in a factory.

A young man goes to his father's home in Maine where, helped by a public registry, he locates and tracks down sex offenders. In parallel, his mother follows his trail in order to try to understand what could have pushed him into this murderous madness.

12-years-old Manon promises her younger brother, Mimi, that they will stay together, despite their difficult family circumstances and the ominous signs of being put into foster care. During the height of Quebec's FLQ Crisis in 1970, they stage their own rebellion by kidnapping an elderly woman and hiding her in the country, aided by their two cousins.