Adrift on an Ice Pan

Dr. Wilfred Grenfell's harrowing tale of near-death on the ice of northern Newfoundland.

How does a man save his own life? In 1908 Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, a medical missionary in northern Newfoundland, was traveling by dog team to treat a patient. In his haste Grenfell took a short cut across the sea ice. A change of wind and ice conditions left the doctor and his sled dogs stranded on an ice pan, their komatik and provisions lost. Grenfell came close to perishing.

Adrift on an Ice Pan is Grenfell’s own account of this near-fatal misadventure. He survived dauntingly cold and seemingly hopeless conditions through an inventive presence of mind and by sacrificing and skinning three of his sled dogs to clothe himself against the elements. Because of his tenacity and quick thinking, and that of his rescuers, Grenfell endured.