Thirteen-year-old Helen is not entirely sure she is looking forward to spending the next six months on board the Karluk, a ship headed on an Arctic expedition. But with the recent death of her father, it is the only work her seamstress mother can find. Helen's nine year-old brother, Michael, is delighted to be off on a real adventure but neither he nor Helen could have realized just how extraordinary this trip would be. The ship's hard-bitten captain, Robert Bartlett, must use all his seafaring skill when the Arctic Ocean begins an early freeze-over and the ship becomes trapped in ice. But will Bartlett's knowledge of the unpredictable and treacherous Arctic be enough to save his passengers?

In the pages of her diary, Helen records the fate of the crew and her family as they leave the ship and try to make their way across shifting ice flows, through blinding blizzards and past polar bears to safety on solid land. As the trek proceeds, Helen learns a few things about her family, about friendship and about a remarkable strength she never knew she had.

Based on true events surrounding the ill-fated Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913, Trapped in Ice is a riveting, fast-paced adventure set in a marvelous but brutal world of ice and snow.