A sociologist, on a research assignment, comes to southcentral Montana, to examine population changes in rural Montana, and to observe the social effects of such transitions. Thus begins an odyssey which will radically change his life. While observing the emotional impacts of these population changes, Dr. Jim Alden finds healing for his own personal sorrow in the valley to which Sister Moriah had brought healing of body and soul years earlier. He not only finds himself caught up in the human stories of Moriah's Valley, but also in a growing relationship with a woman whose home is in Moriah's Valley.