helen is not entirely sure she is looking forward to spending the next six months on board the karluk a ship headed on an arctic expedition but with the recent death of her father it is the only work her seamstress mother can find helens nine yearold brother michael is delighted to be off on a real adventure but neither he nor helen could have realized just how extraordinary this trip would be the ships hardbitten captain robert bartlett must use all his seafaring skill when the ship becomes trapped in ice in the pages of her diary helen records the fate of the crew and her family as they leave the ship and try to make their way across shifting ice flows through blinding blizzards and past polar bears to safety