Northernmost

 Northernmost is a novel about people living in cold lands.  Peter Geye writes about a Norwegian man named Odd Einer Eide who returns from a harrowing adventure on the sea north of the Arctic Circle where he had a job clubbing seals. He and his companion are stranded on glacier when a polar bear grabs their boat full seals and cuts the line so the boat floats away down the fjord in between the ice floes. Later the polar bear kills his companion.  Miraculously Odd Einer is rescued and makes it home only to find his wife, Inga, is not home. Instead he finds her at the cemetery where she thinks she is burying him. She is stunned to see him alive and she is slow to return to their affectionate marital status. All this is happening in 1897. Another storyline takes place in 2017 in the town of Gunflint, MN. I imagine the author has renamed Grand Marais into Gunflint. Greta is a descendent of Odd Einer but she doesn't know that yet. Greta and Odd Einer, separated by five generations, make the best of harrowing circumstances. My favorite character is Odd Einer. His descriptions of his life with Inga and his work on the sea stay with me even when I'm not reading the book. Now that I am finished with it I come to realize that this is the third in a series of novels about the Einer family. I didn't realize I was reading the end of the story first!