J A Greenleaf

Bear J A Greenleaf

In total darkness in the 1960s, an American Coast Guard icebreaker, the Cutter "Bear," escorts a thin-hulled WWII Liberty ship through the high Arctic ice to provide supplies and rescue beleaguered Air Force personnel at fire-ravaged Thule Air Force Base, near the North Pole. After a collision in the ice, south of Thule, the Liberty ship breaks in half and sinks, but not before ramming the icebreaker. Holed and afire, the crew abandons ship in -66 degree weather, high winds, and darkness, leaving behind a sole sailor, left for dead with a badly broken arm. As the ship starts to sink, and grow more frigid by the moment, the sailor must survive the cold, starvation, and Polar bears that have come aboard the dying icebreaker.