The story of the Karluk's voyage takes place in the era of polar exploration.  It is the true story of the last voyage of His Majesty's Canadian Ship Karluk, a voyage she should never have had to make.  It also the story of vanity, ineptitude and cowardice on the part of the expedition's leader, Vilhjalmur Stefansson.  Stefansson was well known for his studies of Eskimo life, and the expedition would include more of those studies.  But he had a far grander scheme.  He wanted to be the one to discover the continent he believed was under the Arctic Ice Cap.  To prove this erroneous theory, he proposed to sail into the Arctic.  He managed to get the Canadian government to finance this two-pronged expedition.  One ship would sail into the ice, while the other would ferry scientists to the northernmost Eskimo villages.

The first ship Stefansson purchased was the Karluk.  She was a steam-and-sail driven whaling ship and she was in rotten shape.  She was not a ship to go into the ice, but Stefansson bought her anyway.  Even after extensive - and expensive - repairs, the Karluk was barely seaworthy.  Her engines would break down again and again.  But into the ice Stefansson would order the hapless ship, even over the objections of the man he had hired as her captain, Robert Bartlett.

Captain Bartlett had commanded the Roosevelt under Admiral Peary, when Peary had made his try for the North Pole.  He knew the Karluk was no ship for a polar expedition.  She wasn't an ice breaker.  But he did his best to sail her where Stefansson wanted her to go.  They left British Columbia's Esquimalt Naval Yard in June of 1913, a late start for a polar expedition.  The Karluk would never return.

Winter came early to the northern hemisphere that year.  Despite Captain Bartlett's most valiant efforts, the Karluk became frozen fast in the pack ice.  She carried aboard her twenty-nine scientists and crew and seven Eskimos, including an Eskimo man, his wife and their two small daughters, ages eight and three.

After the Karluk was frozen for a few days, Stefansson grew restless and decided to "go hunting."  He set out with his personal secretary, two scientists, and two of the Eskimo hunters, saying he would be back in two weeks.  However, he made no attempt to return to the Karluk, but went on overland to join the rest of his party aboard the second ship, the Alaska.  He bought a third ship, the Mary Sachs, to replace the Karluk and continued his grand expedition.  He was overheard by one of the scientists telling his personal secretary, Burt McConnell, that the Karluk and all aboard her were "expendable."  Thus, he abandoned the Karluk to whatever fate awaited her, and would later lie about his actions in an effort to pin the blame for her loss on Captain Bartlett.

The pack ice in which the Karluk was frozen was drifting westward, and was putting increasing pressure on the ship's wooden hull.  Captain Bartlett knew it would just be a matter of time before the hull was crushed.  He had the men load everything on the deck of the ship ready to transfer to the ice when the time came.  Still, the Karluk managed to stay afloat for four months in the ice.  But in January 1914, the ice finally breached the hull in the engine room.  Everyone pitched in and began moving supplies from the ship to the pack ice.  Finally, when they had removed all they could manage, they abandoned their home, and watched as the Karluk sank beneath the frigid waters of the Arctic Ocean.  They were now stranded on the moving pack ice in the dead of winter.  They were several miles from Wrangel Island.  Would the ice hold together long enough for them to safely get twenty-five people, twenty-nine dogs and one cat to land?  And could they survive until they were rescued?

The Ice Master tells the story of their trek to the island and their struggle for survival.  It also tells the story of Captain Bartlett's heroic and harrowing trip to Siberia across the pack ice, and his trek to civilization to get help to his people.  It is a story that you will never forget, never be able to blot out of your mind.  Why?  It is because Ms Niven has not just told their story.  She has allowed the reader to live through that voyage with those who made it.  My hat is off to her for making this bit of history live for us.