For one memorable year, nurse Dorothy Knight traded her conventional urban existence for a life of isolation in the Arctic. This is the story of her courage and humour while she faced the enormous responsibility of caring for the health of scattered villages; of journeys by dog-sled; of loneliness; and of the friendship and interdependence of the few companions who spoke her language. This dramatic, true story glows with human warmth and compassion as Dorothy struggles to carry on her job amid blizzards and epidemics, and as the white woman and the Eskimo community gradually achieve understanding, respect, and friendship.

Dorothy Knight learned a lot that year; the conditions and courage of Eskimo life, the lack of facilities, the tragedies that are sometimes caused by the white man's interference in a long-established way of life. She left having earned the name Lutiapik — the little one who cares for us.

If Lutiapik is a life-affirming story of humour and strength, it is also a shocking book that reveals the ravages of disease brought by the white man to the Eskimo world. It reveals too the pathetic shortcomings of measures only half taken to correct the situation, as official apathy and bureaucratic indifference persists.