A Dream in Polar Fog

A Dream in Polar Fog is at once a cross-cultural journey, an ethnographic fable and chronicle of the Chukchi people and a breathtaking adventure story. It is the story of John MacLellan, a young Canadian sailor who is left behind by his ship, stranded among the native people of the arctic coast. It is the story of one Chukchi community that adopts a crippled stranger and teaches him to live as a 'true human being.' During the long winter, John comes to know his new companions - first as untutored primitives, then in the romantic light of noble savages and finally as a real people who share the best and worst of human traits with his own kind. Tragedy strikes, and a life is lost and re-given; a man rises to take the place of a boy; wounds are healed with compassion, honesty and love. And when difficult times loom ahead, it is his new family that John will fight to preserve. Rytkheu's empathetic voice guides us across the magnificent landscape of the North and reveals all the complexity and beauty of a vanishing world.


Genre: Literary Fiction