Eskimo Boy begins "on a still summer day in Greenland," with Ivik and his father, Maryark, in their kayaks hunting walrus on the Arctic sea. The family has moved from the west coast of the mainland to a small island off the coast for the summer. After Maryark is killed on the walrus hunt and the rising tide carries Ivik's kayak away from the beach, the summer hunting camp on the island becomes a prison from which there is no escape until winter cold turns the sea into a frozen bridge to the mainland.

Ivik is forced to scour the island in search of food. When food runs out, temperatures fall, and the autumn migration makes hunting even more difficult, Ivik and his family are confined to their small home with no seal oil for either heat or light and nothing to eat but the leather straps of...