At the turn of the century, a Kwakiutl warrior raids a collector’s yacht to reclaim stolen sacred masks. He takes the collector’s wife hostage on his 200-mile voyage home. The collector hires a trader to give chase. The account of the pursuit is interwoven with the wife’s harrowing and erotically charged journey. Based on a true story, Ghost Sea climaxes at the last secret, hallucinatory potlatch of the Kwakiutl, where the history of a doomed people is melded with the fury of three hearts.