Flora begins to have leadership problems with her crew when she accepts a man's place in the expedition for the money his sponsors can provide--Gilbert Ashbee.
Aniguin and her begin to drift apart after he returns from America. Armitage had taken him and a few other "eskimos" are tragically put on exhibit at the Natural History Museum.
This incident is reminiscent of events that actually occurred shortly after Robert Peary's 1897 expedition. Two books that chronicle the strange incident are Give Me Back My Father's Body: The Life of Minik and Minik: The New York Eskimo.
Aniguin does not seem to be based on Minik but some of the details are the same. In any event, the experience changes Aniguin as it had also changed Minik.
Flora feels estranged from Aniguin when he returns to Greenland. Her old friend, Tateraq, has also changed. He leaves Flora to die on the ice.
At this time, there was intense competition to reach the Pole, so much so that some scientists were willing to fake their results. Real life fraudster, Frederick Cook, claimed to have reach the North Pole before Peary.
His photographs and his story were later revealed to be hoaxes. Penney seems to base some of Armitage's chicanery on Cook or scientists like him.
Armitage, of course, goes a step further by not only claiming to have made discoveries he never made. By destroying Jakob and Flora's records, he tries to obliterate their work.
Flora revels in the one thing Armitage cannot take away--her time with Jakob in the valley. Though this is a doomed love story, it is an incredibly rich look at at the life of two explorers who were willing to risk so much.
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In the last half of the novel, a novel primarily focused upon desire, Flora finds herself caught up in a love affair with Jakob.
Their paths have crossed before. At Neqi, they felt a connection which resulted in a three year correspondence.
In Jakob de Beyn, Flora finds and rejects the love of her life. She has a five-day affair with Jakob. Soon afterwards, when her husband becomes sick again with a paralytic stroke, Flora makes a choice. She refuses to see Jakob again.
Here Flora resembles many of the Victorian and early twentieth century heroines literature so frequently portrays. There is a "price" she realizes she has to pay. She feels she owes a debt to her husband, Freddie, for funding her trip to the North.
Jakob, too, represses his desire for the illustrious "Snow Queen," as Flora is known. He chooses to become an engaged to a woman, Clara, who loves him as a friend. She is lesbian and will never desire him romantically.
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If you want to read an astounding work of historical fiction with a feminist bent, read Under a Pole Star by Stef Penney.
What attracted me to this book, at first, was the story of a daughter accompanying her father on a polar expedition.
Somewhere I had heard that story before. Pictures of Robert Peary's daughter wrapped in furs came to mind.
Flora Mackie's story isn't based on Marie Peary's but some of the details match. The press made much of Marie Peary's allure. She became known world wide as the Snow Baby, as the Greenlanders called her.
In Stef Penney's novel Flora's story is sensationalized, too, except she is called the Snow Queen. Flora capitalizes on this to launch her return to the Arctic, a move her father does not support.
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