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This story takes place in the far north, the Canadian Arctic, the part of Canada that lies east of Alaska and west of Greenland.

The area is made up of three Canadian territories, Nunavut, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

When it comes to Canada's total land area, these three northern territories make up around 40% of the land,

but they have less than 1% of the population.

It can be rugged and unforgiving terrain,

and it's been described as one of the harshest places on Earth,

especially in the winter. In the Innevik region of the

Northwest Territories is the small settlement of Fort McPherson. It was first established in the

1840s as a trading post, a place where people came together from various regions to trade goods and services.

The fur trade was a big deal in Canada at the time.

The practice of trapping animals and selling their fur goes back thousands of years with indigenous people in North America.

The Gwichin people of Alaska and Canada lived off the land and were

dependent on Caribou, the Canadian version of reindeer, for their existence. They needed the meat

and fur to sustain themselves and also to trade for other items they needed.

In the 1600s, after European settlers and explorers arrived and started to see the value of fur trapping, they adopted the practice too, bringing with them updated technologies which were

difficult for the indigenous to compete with. By the 1800s, historic Canadian companies like the Hudson's Bay Company

and the Northwest Company also wanted to capitalize on the fur trade,

adding to the already fierce competition in the fur trapping and trading market.

It was actually Hudson's Bay Company

who established the trading post at Fort McPherson.

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