When free-spirited Carmel spends a summer working at a Canadian Rockies resort in the 1960s, she falls passionately in love. Weighed down by her Roman Catholic upbringing, and at a time when repressive morals condemned free love, she is torn between her desire for her self-indulgent new boyfriend and her desire to have a career. Amidst betrayals, poverty, and unwanted pregnancy, Carmel rises above her personal struggles to achieve her dream by becoming a lawyer in a male-dominated world.