This is the story of the greatest Canadian ice captain who ever lived--the greatest, by general consent, of any nationality in this century.  Robert Bartlett took ships to the north coast of Ellesmere Island, sledged to within 150 miles of the North Pole, made twenty-two voyages into the Canadian Arctic, and six to other parts of the Arctic, yet is almost wholly unknown in Canada.

Besides piloting some of the most famous exploring voyages of all time--those of Robert E. Peary and Vilhajalmur Stefansson--Bartlett made four arctic voyages for the American Government and sixteen expeditions of his own which produced, in the period between the world wars, an immense wealth of scientific knowledge.  He was the first arctic explorer to place science ahead of exploration.

Harold Harwood worked from the original manuscripts and ships' logs to tell the life-story of this remarkable man.  Bartlett was a colourful, often controversial character, a man whose extraordinary courage and tenacity were of heroic proportions.