The Arctic journal of Patrick Cahill, Machinist's Mate on board the U.S.S. Rodgers, sent from San Francisco in 1881 to find out the fate of the missing exploration ship Jeannette. After a fruitless search, the Rodgers retired for the winter to St. Lawrence Bay in Siberia, where she burned to the waterline. The stranded seamen were taken in by the native Tchouchkis, who shared what little they had. Cahill's journal recounts it all--the exhilarating moments of discovery, the dreadful fire that cast him away on a desolate shore, the shock of two cultures coming together in an extreme of survival.