During the summer of 1971, the Quebec government makes a move to shut down 7 dying villages on the Gaspé peninsula and relocate the population elsewhere. As locals watch their homes being destroyed by fire before leaving, Rejean Cardinal, one of the locals, decides he wants to stay there. He dreams of possessing all of the land for himself, his girlfriend Ginette and his brother Pierre. But things go suddenly wrong when he accidentally wounds a government agent while shooting at empty cans, and runs away like a criminal. Following that, an increasingly dreadful game of cat and mouse between him and the police ends in tragedy.