Alberta Children''s/Young Adult Book of the Year winner
2007
White Ravens: International Youth Library selection of
outstanding books, 2007
ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards Honorable
Mention - Young Adult Fiction 2006
Canadian Children''s Book Centre Our Choice,
2007
Ashley Anowiak is in search of a murderous polar
bear that may be real or mythical. The only thing for certain is
that what she discovers will change her life - and her community''s
- forever.
In spite of its name, no one in the tiny troubled hamlet of
Nanurtalik "the place with polar bears" can remember seeing a polar
bear in decades. But when a teenager''s dismembered body is
discovered on a nearby ice road, everyone fears polar bears have
returned. The community is thrown into chaos as another suspected
bear attack sparks a flury of bullets that whiz through the town
during a blinding four-day blizzard. Was it a real or phantom bear?
No one can say for sure.
Ashley Anowiak is swept into this storm of confusion by her
special link with polar bears expressed through the magic of her
art and the terror of her dreams. She finds herself on the trail of
Nanurluk, a giant bear that has haunted her people for thousands of
years.
Ashley''s bear hunt leads from the frozen catacombs beneath
Itkiqtuqjuaq to the jumbled ice fields covering the Arctic Ocean.
As she closes in on the bear, Ashley''s inner and outer worlds are
torn apart, leaving her desperate for any stability she can
find.
This is the story of a gifted northern youth struggling to find
her true home in a fast-changing arctic, where culture, climate and
landscape seem to be crumbling all around her.