The massive snow bear has been following Jake for days, but that’s not the only thing Jake is worried about. His plane went down in the vast tundra of Keewatin, a region of the Arctic named for the brutal north wind that blows across it, and now he must walk to the nearest settlement, about thirty miles away. If the bear doesn’t get him, the wolves might, or perhaps hunger and fatigue, or—most likely—the bitter cold that comes on the north wind. He managed to save his rifle, but he only has two cartridges, and he doesn’t want to use them unless he has to.

If only his friend Max were with him! Max would know what to do. Max was taught by an old Inuit hunter named Koluc, and from him Max learned to understand the land, to respect it and the creatures that live upon it. Jake never put much stock in the old Inuit myths, but now the bear, the wolves, the land, and the wind itself are teaching him that he has only a limited understanding of any of it and that he may have been wrong about all of it. Time and again his journey to the settlement is delayed, rerouted, called into question entirely. Jake faces the very real possibility that he will not make it. And always behind him is the bear.