A portrait of "the father of American anthropology," this film intercuts archival photographs and motion pictures, including work by photographer Edward Curtis and film footage shot by Boas himself, with recent film from the Pacific Northwest. It was in the Pacific Northwest that Boas made repeated field trips at the turn of the century, to work among the Kwakiut'l. Reflections and anecdotes by scholars, former students of Boas, and the Kwakiut'l themselves are interwoven with Boas' own words, taken from journals, letters, and other writings, to tell the story of this remarkable man.