In 1911 a young American woman, who is a recent anthropology graduate of Barnard College attempting to discover what had become of the vanished Norse settlements in southern Greenland, finds herself instead in the far north of the country living at a trading post run by the famous Arctic explorers, Knud Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen. Sivi Jorgensen, the book's fictional protagonist, becomes integrated into their very real world. A romantic encounter between the American woman and Knud Rasmussen causes her to remain in Greenland for the next seven years. While there Sivi has flashbacks of her...