The narrative opens with a party of English and colonial sportsmen establishing their shooting headquarters on the sea-ice of Prince Edward Island to hunt migratory Canada geese. Alongside the cold mechanics of decoy-shooting and perilous outings on shifting floes, local legends are shared, including tales of ghost lights and wild frontier justice. A sudden unseasonable thaw, however, breaks up the solid ice, setting the hunters adrift upon a vast, shifting pack in the treacherous Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Cut off from land, the survivors retreat to a massive, grounded iceberg, where they construct an ingenious ice-hut and a sheet-iron stove fashioned from their metal decoys. As they drift for days across the frigid waters, they must rely entirely on their wits, hunting seals for blubber and fresh meat to stave off starvation. The harsh elements, snow-blindness, and bitter cold test their physical endurance to the absolute limit.
Amid these trials, camaraderie and quiet heroism prevail, particularly when the group fends off an attacking pair of huge hooded seals in a bloody encounter on the floe. They continually modify their clumsy goose-boat into a seaworthy life-craft, preparing for the inevitable moment when their icy raft will break apart.
The narrative vividly evokes the silent, majestic desolation of the northern sea, teeming with strange life and governed by relentless natural forces. As the ice pack slowly begins to disperse under a shifting wind, the survivors ready themselves to brave the open water in a desperate bid to reach the distant coast.
