Maps on lining pages.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 415-419) and index.

Prologue : challenging "official" history -- Nightmares and fever dreams -- Catastrophe engulfs Jens Munk -- What Thanadelthur made possible -- Matonabbee leads Hearne to the coast -- Mackenzie establishes a second location -- An Inuit artist sails with John Ross -- Edward Parry identifies a northern channel -- The Yellowknife rescue John Franklin -- Tattannoeuck prevents a second debacle -- James Clark Ross locates magnetic north -- Two HBC men map the coast -- What if this Inuk had sailed with Franklin? -- Lady Franklin sends her husband to conquer the passage -- An Orcadian Scot joins the search -- Voyagers find graves on Beechey Island -- John Rae mounts a tour de force -- Robert McClure narrowly escapes disaster -- Greenlandic Inuit save the Kane expedition -- The Scot, the Inuk, the Ojibway -- Lady Franklin enlists Charles Dickens -- The lady won't be denied -- Leopold McClintock retrieves a record -- Who discovered the fate of Franklin? -- Lady Franklin creates an arctic hero -- Tookoolito and Hall gather Inuit accounts -- Inuit hunters keep castaways alive -- Ebierbing and Tulugaq work magic for Schwatka -- Lady Franklin attains Westminster Abbey -- The last Viking in Gjoa Haven -- "Give me my father's body" -- Rasmussen establishes unity of Inuit culture -- Erebus and Terror validate Inuit testimony -- Epilogue : dead reckoning in the Northwest Passage.