This is the memory palace.

I'm Nate Demayah.

All the times he'd been to the Arctic, and the guy had been up there a bunch.

He'd never seen it like that.

Not so early.

The usual plan was you'd pull a banker from San Francisco in March or April, so you'd

get up to Alaska by June, July, the latest.

There'd still be snow and icebergs, because it was still the Arctic and it was 1897, and

we hadn't screwed everything up up there yet.

Some wailers, and traders, and hunters, and fishermen could get around well enough, and

then they'd turn around and head back south with their pelts and whale oil before things

got too crazy.

Some crews would just plan on staying.

They'd pack a ton of food, get as far north as they could until everything froze around

them, and they'd hold up until spring.

They were nuts, but they were used to that sort of thing.

It was standard operating procedure for sailors and trappers and other bearded, wind-burned

men, who worked in the frozen parts of the world back then.

And the men needed to work well together, or it didn't work at all.

So the captains would need to communicate and cooperate.

They could be competitive about finding that secret fishing spot, or the best place to hunt

for whales.

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