Ice Drift (9780547540610) (15 page)

In the end, rather than attempt to boil down the mass of information about Tyson's ordeal—the many characters, the murder of the
Polaris
master, the near mutiny, the shameful treatment of the Inuit—I decided to write a novel about two young boys who were forced to go on a similar journey.

I wish to thank Michelle Konklenberg and Ida Kapakatoak, of the Hunters and Trappers Organization of Kugluktuk, Nunavut, for guiding me to sealing information; John Hickes and Page Burt, of Ranklin Inlet, Nunavut, for information about dog sledges in the 1870s; and author John MacDonald, of Igloolik, Baffin Island, for the lore and legends in his
The Arctic Sky: Inuit Astronomy, Star Lore, and Legend.
MacDonald also suggested Nunatak for the central village of
Ice Drift.
In addition, I consulted
The Inuit Way,
a booklet published by the Inuit Women's Association of Canada; E. C. Pielou's
A Naturalist's Guide to the Arctic,
and Douglas Wilkinson's
Arctic Coast.
Most of the information about ice came from Nathaniel Bowditch's work, but I also relied on I. E. Papanin's
Life on an Ice Floe
(1939) and
Polar Animals
(1962).

While writing Alika and Sulu's adventure, I became so fascinated with the Arctic that I wanted to go to the North Pole. I learned that there are air charters from Nunavut, and pilot Kenn Borek offered to fly me in an Otter, the Arctic workhorse plane. Because of uncertain weather in April or May, I'd be allowed only twenty minutes to stand where Robert Edwin Peary, the man credited with leading the first expedition to reach the North Pole, had stood in 1909. The price for the trip: $87,267.56.

My wallet (and my cardiologist) both nixed the adventure.