Five hundred miles from the North Pole, a scientific expedition is beset by the sea ice it has come to study. Three red kayaks, tiny specks in an austere wilderness, the team is in shock, its way forward blocked by a crumpled and pulverized wreckage of floes. Conditions are unrecognizable, no research can be done. With the Arctic Ocean collapsing all around them, they must escape the chaos by traversing Nares Strait, the most formidable passage of the polar North.