Miyax/Julie

Miyax, called Julie when she is in white-influenced settings, is a pretty thirteen-year-old girl who is making an effort to cope with difficult circumstances. Her mother is dead, and her father is missing, assumed dead. She has a grumpy guardian aunt, and her arranged marriage is to a young husband who is feeble-minded and violent. By remembering what her father taught her and supplementing it with observation and logic, she not only survives in the hostile environment of the tundra but also comes to master and love it. In the course of the book, she changes from a fairly docile, dependent girl who looks to others to solve her problems to one who cannot only survive an Arctic winter but nurture others.

Miyax/Julie is the central character of the book, and just as the Arctic sun circles the horizon all through a long Arctic day, so...