Set in the year 1896 in the Yukon Wilderness, the film opens when Charlie (Daniel Martin) a Native American fur trader, discovers his young son Mitsah (Missaele) attempting to befriend a wolf, he scares the beast away, believing it to be too wild and dangerous. Unknown to him, his son persists. Mitsah names the animal White Fang because of the ivory-white teeth the beast sprouts. That night, Charlie changes his mind about the animal when it arrives at his hut barking furiously. Mitsah, while strolling through the woods at night to meet his friend, falls through the thin ice of a frozen lake and the animal, a wolf/dog cross breed, raises the alarm.