The Giant Of The North Or Pokings Around The Pole

This is the tale of a giant Eskimo, Screekinbroot, also called Chingatok. Journey with our young heroes into the frozen tundra and icy waters of the North Pole regions for encounters with Eskimo peoples and to learn about their life and what it is like when the "Kabiunets" comes to the Arctic. Captain Vane, his son Benjamin, and his two nephews Leo and Alf come in search of the North Pole. When their ship, The White Bear, gets stuck in the ice, the party of mariners face icy adventures and, in the end, "discover" the North Pole. (This was written before the Pole had been discovered.) There they find an old man whose ancestor was John MackIntosh, one of the sailors of Captain Henry Hudson, who had journeyed to the north pole, married, and had children, one of whom was this old man. Robert Michael Ballantyne was part of a famous family of printers and publishers. At the age of 16 he went to Canada and was six years in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. He returned to Scotland in 1847, and published his first book the following year, Hudson's Bay. For some time he was employed by Messrs Constable, the publishers, but in 1856 he gave up business for the profession of literature, and began the series of adventure stories for the young with which his name is popularly associated.