Filmmaker Werner Herzog travels to the Antarctic community of McMurdo Station, on Ross Island, the headquarters for the National Science Foundation and home to eleven hundred people during the austral summer. McMurdo is a gathering place for people who want to step off the map and where everyone seem to be full-time travelers and part-time workers. Beyond the settlement, Herzog ventures from the under-ice depths of the Ross Sea to the brink of the Mount Erebus volcano. Over the course of his journey, nature in the wild shares equal time with human nature and he encounters many a colorful character along the way.