I did gobble this up as an adventure yarn, and found the extensive use of first-hand accounts extraordinary and gratifying. Emma De Long's letters between chapters was a beautiful reminder of not only the souls but hearts at stake.

But while Sides writes fairly sympathetically of Indigenous peoples (when they are present), he perpetuates the same Western view of the Arctic and pumps up the mystery and theories, always speaking from that perspective and leaving out the context that "unknown" can mean unknown to a culture or society, not everyone.

Many of the details around Indigenous peoples are also lacking. Sides uses both Eskimo and Inuit and it's not clear why he uses which when. Also, Eskimo is considered a dated term in many communities, and he doesn't give this context. He frequently uses Inuit incorrectly - a single person is an Inuk, two are Inuuk, three or more are Inuit. He does explain what pemmican is, twice, when it's a fairly well known food, especially in cold survival situations.