Three Arctic Stories
by H.J. Dutton
When writing her 1818 magnum opus Frankenstein, Mary Shelley used a framing narrative in which Dr. Victor F recites his tale to sailors trapped in the frigid Arctic wastes. This setting sets the tone for Victor’s background before his story even begins. Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) spends significantly more time in a polar setting, the Antarctic, following a young man who stows away on a whaling vessel. Civilizations far removed from the polar extremes have a deep fascination with such settings, one that runs through centuries of their literature. Odd, especially since Antarctica is the only continent on Earth that has never possessed a permanent human population.
Perhaps the absence of humanity is what makes Antarctica and places like it so enthralling. It’s the ultimate earthbound frontier, second only to the deep sea. The inherent inhospitality of the setting multiplies external story stakes and interpersonal tensions. The most famous contemporary example is likely John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece The Thing, in which the film’s shapeshifting villain strains the already frayed relationships among an Antarctic outpost’s twelve residents to their breaking points. This remake of the 1951 film is considered a much more faithful adaptation of John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella Who Goes There?, which itself is a spiritual sibling of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness (1936). Both center around research crews in the Antarctic encountering intelligent alien life, though the latter takes things (no pun intended) a step further with its profound and devastating revelations.
Below are three more tales set in the Arctic, in short story form.
“The Captain of the Pole-Star” – Arthur Conan Doyle (1890)
A classic before we move on to lesser known works. John McCallister Ray, a medic on board the titular ship, recounts his captain’s descent into paranoia and later panic as the crew struggles through Arctic ice fields.
“The Crevasse” – Dale Bailey, Nathan Ballingrud (2006)
In the mid-twentieth century, four men and their ten sled dogs race across the ice to deliver their dying companion to an outpost. Disaster strikes when their lead dog plunges into a crevasse, leaving one of their sleds stuck. Unbeknownst to the men, there are far more haunting things below the ice than the corpse of a dog.
“Iqsinaqtutalik Piqtuq” – Aviaq Johnston (2019)
During a day off from school, a thirteen-year-old Inuit child leaves home to play in a snowstorm, brazenly ignoring an adult’s warning about said storm. In doing so, she attracts the attention of a sinister presence living in the storm, one which follows her home.
If you’re in the mood for more cold weather, check out the following stories in our archive:
Read Amy Grech‘s short story “Snow Angel” in Horrific Scribes April 2025.
Description: A loving father gives his frail daughter wings so she can soar.
Read Jon McGoran‘s short story “Christmas Angel” in Horrific Scribes September 2025.
Description: A lonely old woman and a tiny young girl share a Christmas tradition and a terrible secret.
Read Jan-Andrew Henderson‘s short story “Lake Fame” in Horrific Scribes, January 2026.
Description: Hiding in a deserted summer camp beside Lake Fame, a family tries to survive while they figure out why the world is slowly turning plastic.
Read Lene MacLeod‘s story “Smashing in the New Year” in Horrific Scribes, January 2026.
Description: There is a storm brewing, along with a tension in the air on New Year’s Eve 1999. What will the new millennium bring? One woman just wants to get through the event with her children and dog, but things begin to get strange.
Read Thomas C. Mavroudis‘s short story “In the Bleak Christmas Market” in Horrific Scribes, December 2025.
Description: Two sisters lost in holiday revel wander into a very different market from where they started.