The Ice Master: A Novel of the Arctic - Softcover

Two whaling ship captains, a brash Yankee and a young Newfoundlander, clash during their year-long stay among the Inuit of Baffin Island hunting for whales

whaling was North America’s biggest business. Successful voyages south, to the warm waters of Melville’s great white whale, or north, to the Arctic, brought back ships laden with the whale oil that lit the lamps of the civilized world and the whalebone that stiffened its corsets. Many of the fortune seekers in this harsh trade lost their lives, while others became millionaires.

In James Houston’s exciting new adventure novel it is the spring of 1875. Two ships set sail from Connecticut, traveling north together to the Baffin Island Arctic whaling grounds.

One ship is captained by a hard-as-nails Yankee veteran, a man who knows how to deal with mutineers. The other falls to the command of a young Newfoundlander, an expert at sailing through ice fields in a wooden hull – an “Ice Master” – but inexperienced in the specialized, bloody trade of Arctic whaling. Fierce conflicts arise between the two men as they struggle for control during