Over the winter of 1926-27, Jack Hornby led a doomed expedition to the freezing barren lands of the Canadian North-West territories. He took two men with him on the journey, his naive 18-year-old cousin, Edgar Christian and a young friend, Harold Adlard. All three men died of starvation. Two years later a Mounties patrol found their bodies along with a diary left by Christian, the longest-surviving and youngest member of the party. This diary, donated to his school by his grieving parents and discovered half a century later by the author, is at the centre of the book.