From the book flap:

"Andrew Stewart, a sturdy fifteen-year-old, is apprenticed as a clerk to the manager of a fur-trading post at Fort Chimo on the Hudson Strait, in Naskapi Indian territory. Luckily for Andrew, an Indian boy called Pashak soon befriends him. By late autumn, when the manager gives the boys a chance to set up a fur-trading outpost on the far off Ghost Lake - once the river has frozen over so snowshoes and toboggans can be used - Andrew is eager to go. But the winter is a brutal one. The caribou herds fail to appear and imminent starvation threatens the Naskapi family with whom the boys are staying.

This dramatic contemporary story, set in a rugged but beautiful land, is based on true events. It gives a remarkable picture of a fascinating way of life in the far north as lived by a little-known Indian tribe. The author has himself lived under such bitter, life-and-death circumstances."