In the frozen wilds of northern Labrador, a fifteen-year-old boy named Bob Gray makes a desperate bargain with the winter. His sister Emily is dying, and the doctors have given up on her. But there is one hope: the valuable furs of the far north, where Bob must venture alone into a landscape that wants to kill him. Armed with nothing but courage and his dead father's rifle, he faces a merciless wilderness, brutal cold, and the constant threat of starvation. Adding to his trials is Micmac John, a half-breed trapper whose rivalry with Bob turns increasingly sinister, each man knowing that the same territory cannot support them both. This is adventure at its most elemental: a boy against the north, love against the odds, and the question of whether sacrifice can be enough when the land itself is determined to take everything. Written in 1907 in the tradition of Jack London, this is a story that understands how the wilderness strips away everything except what you're made of.
