Set in Alaska, Due North is an extraordinary novel about a young woman - Sara Maher. Sara, fiercely independent daughter of a conventional middle-class American family, has for years made a precarious living furtrapping in the mountains of the frozen Arctic, in love with nature's simplicity and stark beauty. But Sara is also a haunted survivor, desperately trying to conquer her guilt, and the terror that still accompanies it. The year before, she had - for a few moments of stunned horror - been too frightened to come to her beloved husband's aid when he was attacked by a raging grizzly bear. Afraid to make a risky run for their rifle, Sara had remained in safety while her husband, Alan, was killed. She is left alone, feeling betrayed by the wilderness she loves... betrayed as well by what seems her own failure, her cowardice. Though trying to maintain her wilderness life, Sara finds she can no longer continue the cruel business of trapping. And she lives in fear - fear that the great bear will return to her mountain homestead with the spring. Secretly relieved when the local Indian tribe - believing she's bad luck - orders her from her remote cabin homestead on their land, Sara sets out from the mountains for the long journey down the Yukon River toward civilization. During this journey with two young Indians, she becomes involved in a richly erotic relationship, perhaps the beginning of healing. But when she reaches Seattle, Sara finds herself a nearly savage stranger in the soft, self-indulgent world of modern America's glittering cities. Her mother is old and dying - kept alive in the limbo of a nursing home.