Every year, equipped with specialist equipment and a team of huskies, an intrepid group of highly-skilled competitors penetrates a porcelain world. It is winter in the sub-Arctic, a season of extreme cold, storms and 17-hour nights, where the snow underfoot is so crystalline that it chafes like sandpaper. This is the Yukon Territory, the start of the annual Yukon Quest, a 1025-mile dog-sled race which ends in the heart of Alaska. Award-winning journalist John Balzar decides that he too must take part in this epic event, and this book tells the story of his adventures, dramatically depicting the wild country, the extreme cold and the solitary ordeal of the drivers and dogs who commit to the race.