Summary

“North Country” is a short story about a young civil engineer, Kate, who moves to assume a postdoc at the Michigan Institute of Technology. Kate travels to Michigan by cruise, where her colleagues marvel at the fact that she is the only woman in her engineering department. On the cruise, she meets a man named Magnus. He is handsome, genuine and forward – after a mediocre conversation, she leaves without telling him her name.

Kate works at a lab as a structural engineer, designing “concrete mixes and experimenting with new aggregates like fly ash and artificial particulates” (85) She teaches Design of Concrete Structures and Structural Dynamics, where the male students attempt to flirt with her. She is miserable in her new apartment, leaving all her boxes unpacked because to unpack implies that she will need to stay.

At the local grocery store, Kate encounters...