Land of the Midnight Sun

The territory of the Arctic Circle surrounding the North Pole is a place of pristine beauty. Ice floes and icebergs sparkle like crystal in the shimmering, frigid sea, unwarmed by the sunlight that hovers on the horizon for six months straight each year. It is this peculiar phenomenon, an effect of the earth's tilt at the poles, that earns this place its name — the Land of Midnight Sun.

A group of Eskimo villagers.

Few in the civilized countries of the temperate zones and beyond know anything about the frozen north besides what they might read in Better Igloos and Ice Gardens. Eskimo polar bears inhabit the Land of the Midnight Sun, living in small village clusters atop the ice fields and frozen floes. The Eskimos subsist on a diet of fish pulled from the waters below the ice layer; rarely is fishing productive along the ocean, where local killer whales do most of their feeding. Eskimos travel throughout the region on dog-sled, a common mode of transportation in the Arctic.

Traders rarely venture to the far north, but those who do find natives willing to swap furs for cash, or barter for food or items that help them catch enough fish to last the winter.