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A young Lillian Benojee swims with an unnamed man, who resents that she will be leaving him behind for residential school and its forced Christianity. At the residential school, Lillian comes to embrace the Christian teachings she learns, but the abusive school traumatizes her cousin Sammy Aandeg.
Several decades later, Lillian is dying at home on the First Nations Reserve of Otter Lake, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. Among them are Virgil Second, her grandson, and his mother Maggie, who was elected chief of the Reserve after the death of her husband Clifford, the former chief. Elsewhere, the unnamed man senses that Lillian is dying, and he rouses himself from a life of squalor and rides on his motorcycle to Otter Lake. The local animals recognize the significance of his return, especially the racoons, who have a long-standing feud with the man. The stranger, who has taken on the appearance of a young white man, introduces himself to the townspeople as John. He speaks to Lillian in private, and she asks him to restore magic to the Reserve and to Maggie’s life. Lillian dies, and John kisses her. Virgil witnesses this through the window, and it makes him wary of John.
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Maggie’s relationship with her husband Clifford was strained because he neglected his family in favor of his job, but now that she is chief, she finds herself prioritizing her work over Virgil. She is particularly concerned with a new parcel of land the Reserve has acquired. The surrounding communities are confused and displeased that a First Nations Reserve would gain land rather than losing it, and to justify the purchase she must decide on a productive use for the land. Members of the Otter Lake community constantly approach her to suggest ideas (most of which are impossible or absurd), and Maggie wishes she could let the land exist in its natural state. Maggie is driving through this parcel of land when her car gets a flat tire, and John drives her to a garage on his motorcycle.
Maggie and John begin a romance, much to Virgil’s dismay. Virgil finds petroglyphs that John carved of himself leaving Otter Lake with Maggie, and when he sees John dancing alone at night, he is reminded of the stories of the legendary trickster Nanabush. Virgil visits his uncle Wayne, Maggie’s youngest brother and Lillian’s favorite child, whose strong relationship to Lillian prompted her to teach him more Anishnawbe language and traditions than his siblings. Wayne lives on an island training in the “Native martial art” that he has invented, but he agrees to come to the mainland with Virgil when Virgil describes the threat he thinks John poses to Maggie. Virgil and Wayne follow John, who is staying with Sammy Aandeg, and after watching him argue with a racoon, they realize that John actually is Nanabush. Wayne explains that Nanabush has a different moral code than humans, and that he will not give up until he gets what he wants––which, in this case, is Maggie.
John embarks on a plan to help Maggie deal with the new parcel of land and, in doing so, win her affection. He enlists the help of Virgil’s cousin Dakota, who quickly becomes infatuated with John. He also meets Jesus Christ. John and Jesus find common ground over their mutual love of Lillian, and Jesus teaches John how to walk on water.
Wayne and Virgil try to tell Maggie the truth about John, but she doesn’t believe them. The two decide to drive him out of town themselves. They once again follow John, and they watch him put an end to his feud with the raccoons by buying them bags of food from the grocery store. Wayne approaches John, and the confrontation quickly escalates into a brawl. Wayne’s years of martial arts training make him an even match for John’s natural abilities, and they climb into the trees to fight across the forest canopy. Finally, the fight ends in a draw. Virgil brings Wayne to the medical clinic, joined by a confused Dakota who doesn’t understand what she has seen. Virgil does his best to explain, but Dakota’s parents did not raise her in the Anishnawbe tradition, and she doesn’t know who Nanabush is.
Meanwhile, John makes his way to a press conference where Maggie and a Member of Parliament (Crystal Park) will be discussing the newly-purchased land. The press conference quickly goes off the rails when the reporters discover bones in the dirt. John secretly stole these bones from a museum and buried them on the parcel of land to prevent developers from building on it. He is proud of his plan, but when he pulls Maggie away from the ensuing chaos and explains himself, she is furious. She ends their relationship and tells him to leave Otter Lake.
Before he leaves, John finds Virgil, and the two of them discuss Nanabush’s trickster nature and how he represents a universal Anishnawbe experience. John advises Virgil that the future is only limited if Virgil expects it to be, which inspires Virgil to imagine new possibilities for himself. John departs Otter Lake, leaving Virgil with new hope and Maggie with a new ability to accept chaos. In the years that follow, John/Nanabush doesn’t disappear entirely, and a man once sees him driving his motorcycle across the water of the lake.
