Harper shares stories of the rise and fall of the whaling industry in the Eastern Canadian Arctic. At the turn of the nineteenth century, whale baleen and blubber were extremely valuable commodities, and so sailors braved the treacherous Arctic waters, risking starvation, scurvy, and death, to bring home the bounty of the North. The presence of these whalemen in the North would irrevocably alter the lives of Inuit. Along with first-hand accounts from journals and dozens of rare, historical photographs, this collection includes the myth of the Octavius-a ship that drifted for twelve years with a frozen crew-encounters between sailors and Inuit, tales of the harrowing hazing rituals suffered by first-time crewmembers, and much more.