The Fur Country
by Jules Verne
Lieutenant Jasper Hobson and other members of Hudson's Bay Trading Co. and his team, along with the company's guests, Mrs. Paulina Barnett and Thomas Black, travel from Canada's Northwest Territory to Cape Bathurst in the Arctic Ocean. On Cape Bathurst, Hobson plans to build a new commercial center for the company, Paulina Barnett is ready for an adventure, and Thomas Black plans to visit the solar eclipse again next summer. The party sets up its outpost before the arrival of winter, but when spring comes, nearby volcanic activity causes an earthquake in which the colony survives; However, a surprising revelation occurs in the summer, when Thomas Black tries to observe a complete eclipse. Cape Bathurst changed its position to the north by about three degrees latitude and a few hundred miles to the west; Hobson determines that the cape has become an island. Now the party's only hope is the beginning of winter, so that they can travel on the ice to reach the Russian American mainland (Alaska). When a mild (by Arctic standards) winter arrives and the island is covered in ice just north of the Bering Strait; however, the ice is not frozen enough to pass safely on the ice. The islands' colonists are waiting for the spring to unravel and hope that the island will move south by the Bering Current and that the boat they are building will be able to take them to safety.
