In April’s chill of ’48,
On Arctic land in frozen state,
A band of hunters, Inuit kin,
Set forth where icy coasts begin.
With spears in hand, through snow they tread,
To hunt where seals and walrus fed.
But in their path, an icy hill
Blocked all the view—it stood so still.
The youngest one, with heart so bold,
Ran up the slope through biting cold.
He reached the top, then stopped in place,
A strange confusion on his face.
He ducked below, then waved them near,
His face now marked by shock and fear.
The others came and climbed the rise,
What met them froze their hearts and eyes.
No seals, no game—not beast nor man,
But ghostly forms along the span.
About forty men in ragged line,
With jerking limbs, no spark or sign.
Their faces blank, their skin bruised black,
They stared ahead—no turning back.
With tattered clothes, they shuffled on,
As if their human soul was gone.
“These Kunat,” whispered one with dread,
“The white men from the ship,” he said.
They’d heard the tales, they knew the name—
But why were these not quite the same?
Behind some men, a sled did drag,
Beneath a tarp, a lumpy sag.
What lay beneath, they could not see,
But sensed it dark—inhumanly.
Then came a sound—a guttural cry,
That echoed fierce beneath the sky.
One white man screamed and hit the snow,
Yet no one stopped, no one said “No.”
The sled was brought beside the heap,
They tossed him in—a death so cheap.
And with a calm, robotic air,
They pulled along that lifeless fare.
The hunters watched, then turned away,
And fled back home without delay.
But tales like these, they don’t sit still,
And soon they spoke of what did chill.
“Perhaps,” they said, “these men are starved,
Their strength and reason both are carved.
Let’s take them food, and peace extend—
It may bring calm, or build a friend.”
Next day they climbed that hill once more,
But silence stood where men had tore.
No ghoulish line, no dragging sound,
Just wind and prints upon the ground.
They tracked the path through snow and ice,
Each step ahead, a rolling dice.
Until they reached an empty site,
Where once those men had spent the night.
A pot was there above the flame,
But no warm hands, no soul to claim.
They peered within and reeled in fear—
What had been cooking once stood near.
Inside that pot, a ghastly find—
A human skull, grotesquely mined.
Cracked open wide, as if to dine
Upon what once had thought and mind.
The truth sank deep in hunters’ bones,
And echoed through the Arctic zones.
The white men weren’t just lost to cold—
They’d turned to acts both dark and bold.
Months went by, the snow did drift,
Until the ice gave them a gift.
A ship stood still upon the sea,
Untouched, intact—a mystery.
They climbed aboard, no souls to greet,
But linen beds and canned goods neat.
Fine plates and books and cutlery,
Yet no sign of the tragedy.
Why leave this place with food and fire,
To walk through death and never tire?
The truth would wait a century,
Till science solved the mystery.
The food they ate, though wrapped with care,
Was poisoned through the lead in there.
It drove them mad, then made them weak,
And madness claimed what death did seek.
They left their ship in lunacy,
To die in snow and misery.
And when their brothers fell and froze,
They dragged them on through ice and woes.
That sled, that tarp, those lifeless men—
Were not for grief but meals again.
They ate their dead to stay alive,
Though none, in truth, would long survive.
So now upon that island bare,
The winds still whisper tales of scare.
Of men gone mad in lead’s cruel grip,
Of death that stalked a perfect ship.
And bones still lie beneath the snow,
Where hungry ghosts and cold winds blow.