Ivanir Hasson, half Norwegian, half Jewish, lived a wandering life until he came to rest on a deserted mountain farm in Tinn in Telemark. One day she met Carl Olsen, a street clown from New Zealand. They married in a monastery church by Tinnsjøen, and he moved into her small farm. But much of the year they travel around and hold circus classes for Norwegian schoolchildren.

Skåro is a lonely, roadless farm high above Fyksesund in Hordaland. One man still lives here, the more than 80-year-old Jon J. Skaar. And he intends to stay, even if the ladder down to the fjord is not clear on a winter's day, and even the mile-long arm of the fjord sometimes freezes over, so that the man is completely isolated. The only company he has are two marten.