Cole violently assaults classmate Peter Driscal after Peter reports Cole for stealing, leaving Peter with permanent brain damage.

Parole officer Garvey presents Cole's case to the Healing Circle as an alternative to sending Cole to jail.

Cole lies to the Healing Circle, falsely claiming remorse and a desire to change in order to avoid prison.

Cole travels by skiff to a remote Alaskan island with Garvey and Edwin to begin his banishment sentence.

Cole burns down the shelter Edwin built for him on the island in a wild, defiant rage.

Cole attempts to swim to the next island to escape but is nearly frozen to death as the tide pulls him back.

Cole spots the Spirit Bear across the bay and fashions a branch into a spear, intending to kill it.

The Spirit Bear attacks and mauls Cole when he charges at it, breaking his arm and crushing his ribs.

The Spirit Bear returns to Cole as he lies dying on the forest floor, and Cole reaches out and touches its fur.

Edwin and Garvey discover Cole near death on the island and transport him by boat to a hospital.

The Justice Circle refuses to give Cole another chance, but Edwin and Garvey take him into their personal custody.

Cole returns to the island without handcuffs, builds his own shelter entirely by himself, and begins healing in earnest.

Cole performs the dance of anger alone at night, screaming apologies and cries for self-forgiveness into the darkness.

Edwin tells Cole that Peter has attempted suicide, and Cole proposes that Peter come to the island to heal.

Peter attacks Cole violently at the pond, but Cole refuses to fight back, and the boys reconcile as the Spirit Bear appears to both of them.

After violently assaulting a classmate named Peter Driscal, troubled teen Cole Matthews is offered a chance to avoid prison through a Tlingit tradition of banishment to a remote Alaskan island. Cole arrives on the island defiant and dishonest, burning down his shelter and attempting to escape before nature forces him to confront his own vulnerability. A near-fatal mauling by a rare Spirit Bear leaves Cole dying on the forest floor, where a profound spiritual transformation begins. He is rescued and given a second chance on the island, where mentors Edwin and Garvey teach him to process his anger and take responsibility for his life. As Cole heals, he realizes he cannot be whole until he helps his victim Peter heal too, and he invites Peter to join him on the island. The story culminates when Peter attacks Cole at the pond and Cole refuses to retaliate, breaking the cycle of violence as both boys witness the Spirit Bear together and carve a circle into Cole's totem pole.

Cole's journey from violent offender to healed young man.

Garvey visits Cole in the detention center and uses cake ingredients and a finished cake to teach him life is about perspective.

Peter Driscal arrives at Cole's Healing Circle and struggles visibly to say his own name due to his injuries.

Edwin tells Cole about the Spirit Bear on the island, warning that whatever Cole does to animals, he does to himself.

Garvey gives Cole the at.óow blanket before leaving him alone on the island, urging Cole not to waste his chance.

Cole spots a family of orca whales searching for food in the bay but ignores them, focused entirely on escaping.

Cole lies dying on the forest floor and watches baby sparrows stretching their beaks upward, begging for food in their nest.

A storm strikes the sparrow tree down overnight, and Cole finds all four baby birds dead in the grass the next morning.

Cole eats insects and grass to survive on the forest floor, then catches and swallows a live mouse.

Cole wakes at nurse Rosey's home and whispers 'My fault' when Garvey tries to apologize for bringing him to the island.

At the dock before leaving for the hospital, Cole tosses his tuft of Spirit Bear fur into the ocean.

Cole arrives at the detention center after leaving the hospital and hangs the at.óow above his bed as a daily reminder.

Cole's mother visits Cole at the detention center, admits her role in allowing his abuse, and asks his forgiveness.

Garvey splits a hot dog three ways, toasts their friendship with a wordless song, and teaches Cole that life is what you make it.

Edwin takes Cole to a freezing pond and uses a broken stick to show that anger always remains but happiness can be chosen.

Cole, Edwin, and Garvey dance around the fire imitating humpback whales and each share what the whale taught them.

Before Cole is ever sent to the island, Garvey visits him in detention and uses a baked cake to teach him that life is about perspective, while the Healing Circle exposes the full human cost of Cole's violence through Peter's damaged speech. On the island, Edwin's warning about the Spirit Bear and Garvey's gift of the at.óow blanket quietly set the stage for everything that follows. Cole's near-death experience is punctuated by small, vivid moments — watching sparrows beg for food, eating insects to survive, and finally waking in a nurse's home to accept full responsibility. After recovering, Cole's mother confesses her role in enabling his abuse, while Garvey and Edwin teach Cole to turn shared hot dogs into celebrations and freezing water into clarity. These secondary moments weave together to show that healing happens not just in dramatic breakthroughs but in honest conversations, small acts of courage, and the willingness to pay attention to the world around you.

The lessons, losses, and quiet moments that shape Cole's transformation.

Cole calls his father a liar in front of the Healing Circle, and his father grabs Cole's arm in anger.

Peter tells the Healing Circle that he wants Cole to feel the exact pain that was inflicted on him.

Cole realizes the tide is dragging him backward during his escape swim and accepts that he cannot control everything.

Cole discovers the at.óow blanket survived the fire he set and feels grateful for it for the first time.

During the Spirit Bear's mauling, Cole notices seagulls fighting over pieces of his own torn flesh on the ground.

Cole stares at the full moon rising after the storm and dimly senses its circular shape holds a meaning he cannot remember.

Cole watches ants colonize the fallen sparrow tree and resolves to live, realizing that being alive means having choices.

Cole's father is charged with child abuse, and Cole's mother finally agrees to testify against him.

Edwin shoves Cole to the floor at the Justice Circle to demonstrate that a single traumatic experience can trigger sudden transformation.

Edwin hands Cole a large stone and teaches him to carry it up a hill and roll his anger away from the top.

Cole chops a straight log so it cannot be used as a canoe, committing himself to carving a totem pole instead.

Cole clears his mind completely on the shoreline and, making himself invisible, sees the Spirit Bear watching patiently from a distance.

Peter silently steps forward and pushes Cole's ancestor rock down the hill for the first time without being asked.

Peter destroys the bear carving on Cole's totem pole, and Cole responds calmly by suggesting that Peter carve his own totem.

Peter carves a detailed replacement bear onto Cole's totem pole, and Cole asks Peter to teach him to carve so skillfully.

Cole's path toward healing is built on a series of turning points that force him to face uncomfortable truths about himself, his family, and his place in the world. At the Healing Circle, his family's violence erupts publicly and Peter's own rage is laid bare, revealing the full weight of what Cole's actions have cost everyone around him. On the island, Cole encounters smaller but equally crucial revelations: that the tide controls him, that the at.óow survived his rage, and that watching ants replace dead sparrows on a fallen tree is enough to make a dying boy choose to live. His second chance on the island brings new commitments, from destroying a log he might have used to escape to rolling his anger down a hill with a stone every morning. Cole's growing readiness to forgive culminates in an invisible communion with the Spirit Bear at the shoreline. Peter's slow and painful opening — from silently pushing a rock to destroying and then recreating Cole's totem carving — marks the emotional turning points that finally bring both boys toward reconciliation.