The thought of writing a science fiction story for the Polaris anthology filled me with trepidation. Science wasn’t exactly my strongest subject in high school. Then I looked at the research that scientists were doing for the IPY, some of which was happening in my own back yard, the Yukon.

So I did some research of my own – on the Internet, in science magazines and in books – and I kept coming back to permafrost. In the Yukon, you have to pay attention to how permafrost is going to affect your plans, whether it’s building a house or putting in a highway. The history of the Alaska Highway is rife with stories of how engineers ignored permafrost at their peril.

And then I learned that ground ice is melting in certain areas of the north, thanks to unusually warm summers. This melting turns the top layer of permafrost into a greasy sludge that shears ice off slopes, providing access to deep layers of permafrost.

Those huge amoeba-shaped slides are profoundly unnerving, but they sparked some questions in me. What if melting permafrost revealed something interesting? Something completely unexpected?

And so Lily ends up on Ellesmere Island with a group of teenagers who have an “Aptitude” for anthropology. Instead of spending six months in juvenile detention, they agree to work for an anthropologist who is exploring ancient permafrost. And that’s how Lily comes to discover the artifact that will change the course of human history.

By Marcelle Dubé