Eider down, the warmest feather in the world, allows a unique Inuit community to survive the harsh arctic winter. A lack of caribou on the Belcher Islands, Nunavut, make resident eider ducks an important source of food and clothing. One hundred years ago, an explorer named Robert Flaherty, inspired by the perseverance of the islanders against the harsh arctic environment, began his career as a filmmaker. The resulting film was destroyed when Flaherty accidentally dropped his cigarette in with the negatives. He later went on to make the world's first documentary (Nanook of the North) elsewhere, about a different people. The story of the islanders and their bird skin lifestyle remains untold.

One hundred years later, their story has found a new voice. The islanders have transformed another scientist and explorer, the Mitileuri, the eider ecologist, into a sea ice explorer and filmmaker. Their documentary is a hybrid of natural history and a portrait of Inuit life, a dramatic structure that juxtaposes traditional culture and contemporary struggle to survive a changing arctic environment. Man and bird, the sea ice and the eider down. This is the story of the People of a Feather.