Osuqo, on the brink of womanhood, looks forward to marrying her childhood friend, Poq, who is now a skilled and celebrated hunter among the Inuit people. But all of her childhood dreams and hopes for future happiness are brutally dashed when her people encounter Europeans on a ship off the coast of Greenland. Osuqo and Poq are kidnapped by the sailors, taken to Norway and displayed as exotic curiosities. Christine, the young serving woman commanded to care for Osuqo and Poq, is at first repulsed by them but gradually extends her sympathy and understanding. Told from the alternating points of view of Osuqo and Christine, the harsh, impassioned novel uncompromisingly recounts the tragic clash of two cultures. (Age 14 and older)

Based on the actual kidnapping of Inuit Eskimos by European traders in the seventeenth century, this story decribes the violence inflicted in the name of civilization, while also evoking the beauty of traditional Eskimo life.