Arctic explorer and American visionary Walter Wellman pioneered both polar and transatlantic airship aviation, making history’s first attempts at each. Wellman has been cast as a self-promoting egomaniac known mostly for his catastrophic failures. Instead he was a courageous innovator who pushed the boundaries of polar exploration and paved the way for the ultimate conquest of the North Pole --- which would be achieved not by dogsled or airplane, but by airship. REALM OF ICE AND SKY is the riveting tale of the men who first flew the most advanced technological airships of their time to the top of the world, risking and even giving their lives for science, country and polar immortality.

In the summer of 1913, the wooden-hulled brigantine Karluk departed Canada for the Arctic Ocean. At the helm was Captain Bob Bartlett, considered the world’s greatest living ice navigator. The expedition’s visionary leader was a flamboyant impresario named Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who was hungry for fame. Just six weeks after the Karluk departed, giant ice floes closed in around her. As the ship became icebound, Stefansson disembarked with five companions and struck out on what he claimed was a 10-day caribou hunting trip. Most on board would never see him again. Captain Bartlett now made a difficult and courageous decision. He would take one of the young Inuit hunters and attempt a 1,000-mile journey to save the shipwrecked survivors. It was their only hope.

In July 1881, Lt. A.W. Greely and his crew of 24 scientists and explorers were bound for the last region unmarked on global maps. Their goal: Farthest North. What would follow was one of the most extraordinary and terrible voyages ever made. Greely and his men confronted every possible challenge --- vicious wolves, sub-zero temperatures and months of total darkness --- as they set about exploring one of the most remote, unrelenting environments on the planet. LABYRINTH OF ICE tells the true story of the heroic lives and deaths of these voyagers hell-bent on fame and fortune --- at any cost --- and how their journey changed the world.