As a boy, Inatukk has a vision, and in it he makes a promise to the animals of the Arctic that his people will take only what they need and no more, and in return, the fox, caribou, and seal will be plentiful on the land and will provide for the people well. By the time Inatukk becomes the leader of the people, that agreement has proven a good one. The spirits are happy, and the Inuit are strong and healthy. But then a ship comes to their village, and it brings a trader named Briggs, who gives the people rifles and traps and sends them out to get furs in exchange for the trading goods he’s brought with him. Inatukk worries because the people begin taking too much from the land. The next year, the ship comes back, this time leaving behind the Reverend Joshua Hewitt, an enthusiastic missionary who believes that it is his calling to bring God to the Inuit. And again Inatukk worries.

Sixty years later, Matthew Hewitt sets off on a journey above the Arctic Circle, headed toward a place called Hewitt Sound, named for his late uncle, Joshua Hewitt. He has never been north before, has never even been outdoors much, but he has Joshua’s old letters to Matthew’s father describing the Inuit village and the people and the trader named Briggs. Joshua had written about old Inatukk and his daughter, the beautiful and gentle Utea, as well as his deep respect and regard for the people. Unfortunately, he vanished sometime after that, and so did Briggs, and so did the village, and no one knows what happened to them. Matthew is determined to find out the truth—the ending to Joshua’s story. But the Arctic is far more savage than he expected, and even with the help of an old Inuit hunter named Iudaak to take him north, the risk of simply disappearing, just like Joshua did, is frighteningly high. Matthew must find a strength that he is not sure he has in order to learn the truth of what happened.

This novel is told in a double narrative, following both Inatukk and his daughter Utea and their people on the one hand and Matthew’s journey to Hewitt Sound with Iudaak on the other. It is a revealing look at the Inuit people and their intimate way of life with one another and with the land, and it exposes the harm that white people caused when they came to interrupt that. And yet the characters—nearly all of them—change their opinions about one another, learning and understanding and growing to find a mutual empathy that is at the heart of both stories. The book is about love and loss and human frailty and greed and human strength and endurance. It is about respect, both for the unforgiving land that is the Arctic and for the people who live upon it.