Maurice sends Ed to bring Joel back from Manonash village, a native settlement up the river, after he doesn't return home from a house call. Out of his element, Ed heads upstream along the totem pole-dotted shore complete with bear skulls on poles until he arrives at the tiny primitive village. He discovers Joel, looking wild and unshaven, living amongst the natives speaking fluent Tlingit and living in a barren hut with absolutely no amenities. While he tans hides, spears fish, dries salmon and cans preserves, Joel describes to Ed the week that changed his life.
Joel and Maggie are in the awkward adjustment period of living together and, to make matters worse, whenever they become affectionate, firearms randomly discharge threatening their safety. While Joel becomes obsessed and anxious, Maggie finds it arousing and a wicked fight ensues. When she asks him to move out, he is devastated but now realizes that it was the most loving thing she ever did for him by giving him nothing ... just time to be.
Meanwhile, Chris comes into some cash and, growing out of the "crash pad" mentality, hires Willy to remodel his trailer complete with an enclosed patio and outdoor refrigerator. After Willy floods the entire place, the stress of living in chaos starts to take atoll on the normally easy-going Chris.
Homeless and disenfranchised, Chris finally gives into the chaos and becomes a free man because he feels that you have to lose your mind before you can find it.
While Walt is away securing traplines for the winter, Ruth-Anne is distracted and not her usual self. After struggling to fight the knowledge that she is deeply in love, she gives into her feelings and sends a message to Walt over KBHR's trapline news to come home.
Maurice is planning the First Annual President's Day Fireworks Gala and secures a premiere company to handle the display. Adam returns from anonymity and breaks into Maurice's house unannounced to tell him that the D'Angelos, the fireworks experts, are mob-connected arms dealers. When Maurice continues with his plans, Adam secretly sabotages the entire operation and the D'Angelos resign from the job. An explosives expert himself, Adam finishes the gala presentation with a breathtaking display.
When park ranger Stan Burns (guest star Jimmie Ray Weeks) loses his job and refuses to leave his post, he requests Joel to mediate the situation. Stan is afraid of a change because he feels that people don't like him and he has trouble making friends. Joel, who only knows him as a patient, builds up his self-esteem and talks him down from the fire tower. Afterward, Stan tries to assimilate into society, but bores everyone to tears with his incessant drone of chatter. Joel finally gives Stan some social tips on how to have a two-sided conversation.
When Ed is struck by a bolt of lighming, he wonders if it is a sign that he has been chosen for something. Looking for answers, he consults with Leonard and Chris to no avail. Eventually, he seems to come to grips with the randomness and uncertainty of nature.
Although they have been living together for the last twelve years, Adam and Eve (Valerie Mahaffey) are not officially married. Now that Eve is six months pregnant, they decide they must legally wed for the sake of their child. The town becomes excited over the imminent celebration. Bachelor and bachelorette parties are thrown, the church is decorated, and the wedding attire gathered. All moves along smoothly until Eve begins walking down the aisle. Surprising everyone, she declares she cannot marry Adam because she is heiress to a large fortune. Chris' brother Bernard happens to be in town with a standard prenuptial agreement. After it is signed, the wedding proceeds as planned. Throughout the week prior to the ceremony, Maggie avoids Joel like the plague. Still believing they slept together in Juneau, Maggie is embarrassed at the thought of it. When Joel finally tells her the truth, that she fell asleep before anything happened, she is disappointed that he did not want her badly enough to wake her up. To make herself feel better, Maggie stops by Joel's cabin after the bachelorette party and announces she wants to have sex with him. Joel naturally complies, but as soon as things start to get hot, and Maggie is sure that he wants her, she leaves satisfied. Officer Barbara Semanski delivers Maurice a formal complaint from the neighbor of a large piece of land he owns. The neighbor charges that when Maurice had his land excavated the explosion caused flying debris to hit and wound his grazing animals. The legal matter is quickly forgotten, but the chemistry between Semanski and Maurice remains apparent.
Maurice is selected to be displayed in Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum as part of a new "Rugged Individualists" exhibit. Initially overjoyed by his wax replica, Maurice becomes increasingly spooked and dismayed by it. Finally, when the museum is scheduled to pick it up, he receives notice that he has been "un-chosen" from the exhibit and given the statue as a gift. Unable to live with the freaky manikin and unwilling to let someone else keep it for ridicule and party tricks, Maurice dumps his image in the trash.
Chris is equally traumatized by the realization that pills to control his high blood pressure will keep him from kicking the bucket by forty, thus following in the family tradition. Although this should be an exciting revelation, he realizes that he has been living his life in the short-term, counting on being dead before his deeds caught up with him.
The residents of Cicely are traumatized by a visit from the dental mobile and its dentist, Dr. John Summer, D.D.S. (guest star Jay O. Sanders). With the best of intentions, Dr. John sets up his Winnebago to treat the chops of Cicely's residents. However, the townspeople are not too excited to go under the drill and he is dejected.
After making a glutton of himself at one of Adam's (guest star Adam Arkin) famous dinner parties, Joel becomes a bit ruffled by his chastisements. Maggie later explains that his comments referred to everyone's observation that Joel never reciprocates dinner parties. Completely clueless as to the custom, Joel resigns himself to throw a party. Unfortunately, he only puts forth a halfhearted effort that does not go unnoticed by his mildly annoyed guests. Afterward, when Joel obsesses that he may have poisoned the group with bad mushrooms, Maggie counsels him that he is simply feeling guilty for giving a lousy party and he can learn from this experience.
Chris, one morning, plays an eerie, melancholy song that he used to miss while doing time. Meanwhile, a listener, Edgar Hankins, commits suicide, leaving a note blaming Chris for the sad song he played on the radio. Grappling with the weight of his responsibility, Chris alters his play list to only upbeat tunes. After Adam berates him, and folks at a town meeting claim his new songs are boring, Chris rethinks his decision and brings the whole spectrum of emotions back to KBHR.
When Shelly finds out that Holling gave up his Canadian citizenship, she is flabbergasted that he feels no ties to Canada. Worried that Randi won't grow up knowing that country's beauty, Shelly takes a trip with the baby to visit a friend for Winterfest. Initially, she is overly enthusiastic about everything in Canada until she realizes that it is just another place and she built it all up in her mind. When Holling meets her as a surprise, she knows that it's love, not geography, that will give Randi a home.
Sensing there is a link between the pain Marilyn is having in her leg and a story her grandfather told her, Ed wants to film Marilyn recounting the story. Although she doesn't recall the ending, Ed wants to start the story and see if it will create itself. Afterthe first day of filming as Ed watches the work at home, a negative scratch on the film parts like a curtain into a vision of the tale.
It all began when Marilyn's grandfather, Emery Whirlwind escorted Princess Anastasia to Cicely. She had fled to Alaska after her family was killed in the Russian Revolution and was coming for secret talks with the leader of the Revolution, Lenin. Lenin was hoping to get the people back on his side since Socialism wasn't working and many Russians liked the late Czar so the support of his daughter would be of great help. While the talks drag on, Emery is enchanted with Anastasia and gives her an engraved comb for her hair made of whale bone. Touched by this and moved by the openness of the townsfolk, Anastasia asks him to meet her to go kiting. And, at that point, Marilyn's memory fades.
When Ed is asleep, the moviola mysteriously begins running and the vision continues. Anastasia has a glorious time flying kites and is reluctant to return to her life. As everyone sits impatiently waiting, they rush back on bicycles when she veers out of control. With an injured leg, he and the princess return too late and the treaty is lost. She leaves Cicely and that is the last he ever saw her.
Meanwhile, between political debates, a great passion develops between the princess' lady-in-waiting, Marina and Lenin's doctor, Mikhail. Jazz is brought to Cicely and the world's first off-road vehicle is developed.
The circus comes to Cicely when the bus carrying the "Ludgwig Wittgenstein Masquerade and Reality Company" breaks down. The Flying Man Enrico Bellati (guest star Bill Irwin) takes a shine to Marilyn, but she refuses to go out with him. The mute Bellati is persistent and Marilyn eventually agrees to have dinner with him at her parents' house. Marilyn's parents like him, and Marilyn admits she does, too. But when Bellati asks her to join him on the road, Marilyn is torn between staying in Cicely or seeing the world with The Flying Man.
When Joel's medical school alumni newsletter arrives filled with the exploits of underachievers who now have posh Park Avenue jobs, he starts feeling like a prisoner of Alaska. So to make the most of his time in the wilderness, Joel begins an intensive study program to specialize in endocrinology. Now when he returns to New York, everyone who's anyone will know Dr. Joel Fleischman.
For the first time, Holling notices Shelly's feet are big -- a sign that his passion for Shelly may be waning. So he asks her to marry him in an attempt to salve his conscience. Shelly sees through his ploy, but is hurt when he tells her he did it because her feet aren't attractive any longer. Shelly seeks comfort from Maggie who gives her a less than optimistic pep talk on the joys of singlehood, leaving Shelly to rethink her options.
The Northern Lights are out of kilter and everyone in Cicely is having each others' dreams. Maggie's unsettling dream about a rude French Canadian who orders her to drive him around turns out to be Holling's recurring dream about his father. Joel dreams about living in Candyland and sleepwalks to Ruth-Anne's store looking for Sweet Tarts, which are the dreams of a young boy whom Joel told not to eat candy to lower his blood sugar. Chris runs a matchup service over the radio to unite dreams with their proper owners.
Holling has developed an acute nausea toward all foods and comes to Joel for help. In an attempt to use dream therapy, Maggie joins the sessions since she is having all of Holling's dreams. They discover that Maggie's/Holling's unpleasant dream about a mean French Canadian is based on Holling's traumatizing experience as a ten-year-old, when his father forced him to be his chauffeur. Further analysis reveals that Holling's psychosis is based in the fear of being a terrible father. Once he accepts that he can be kind and giving like his mother, rather than belittling and bullying like his father, he is cured.
Ron (guest star Doug Ballard) dreams about women's shoes and is surprised to discover he has such a passe fetish. In one dream, he sees his reflection in the mirror and, shockingly, it turns out to be Maurice. Like schoolboys with a naughty secret, Ron and Erick (guest star Don R. McManus) tease Maurice about his passion for ladies' footwear. With his back up, Maurice accuses them of cheating at poker in a tense confrontation. After a lecture from Ruth-Anne that sex is the jungle and anything goes, Maurice makes peace with Ron and Erick as well as with his own urges.
Cicely's first homeless man, Lance Bristol (guest star Scott Paulin), appears in the street begging for money. Maurice immediately wants him thrown out of town until he discovers Lance was a marine, too. Maurice suddenly changes his attitude and does everything possible to help the man. The time could not be better for Joel's first vacation from Alaska: it has turned to winter and the sunlight shines for less than an hour per day. Unfortunately, just as Joel is deciding on an exotic destination, he receives a telegram from the state denying him vacation time. They believe the community will be jeopardized without a doctor. Angered by the news, Joel goes on strike, refusing to see any patients, until the state threatens to sue. Ruth-Anne is overcome by her annual winter inspiration to paint.
As the sunlight dwindles, she breaks out the watercolors and creates beautiful sunlit scenes to brighten up the winter darkness. Chris busily creates his annual winter sculpture but loses his inspiration midway through, until Marilyn points out the one essential detail it is lacking -- light. Holling falls into his annual winter hibernation. Just as Ruth-Anne paints and Chris sculpts at the onset of each winter, Holling sleeps for several weeks, leaving Shelly to run the Brick singlehandedly.
Chris' brother, Bernard (guest star Richard Cummings, Jr.), takes over the airwaves at KBHR, while Chris enjoys his vacation at a monastery in an effort to discover his "innermost secret center." Once there, he thoroughly enjoys his sparse surroundings and simple lifestyle until he is overcome by sexual desire for one of the monks. Having always been committed to loving women, he is completely bewildered by his own feelings.
Ruth-Anne surprises Maurice by exercising the option to buy that was included in the original lease contract for her store. Maurice, who needs to be in control of everything, becomes angr with her for asserting her freedom. The two each play Ed against the other until he takes matter into his own hands and discovers a way to convince them not to ruin their twenty-year-lon friendship.
Joel is stir crazy when two weeks pass and he does not have a single patient. He begins to beg the townspeople to schedule an appointment with him for anything - annual checkup, rash miscellaneous pain. Bernard and Marilyn both attempt to teach him to sit still, but to no avail.