At the urging of his Aunt Agnis Hamm he and his daughters move to Quoyle's Point in Newfoundland. While working for the Gammy Bird newspaper his editor asks him to report on the local shipping news. He slowly makes friends and begins a relationship with Wavey, but his confidence and happiness are threatened by the dark secrets he learns about his family history.

1. "In a knot of eight crossings, which is about the average-size knot, there are 256 different 'over-and-under' arrangements possible... Make only one change in this 'over and under' sequence and either an entirely different knot is made or no knot at all may result." — E. Annie Proulx
2. "Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat's blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, and that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery." — E. Annie Proulx