Many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, gathering the down of wild Eider ducks: a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women rich, but had long been in decline. Back at home, Rebanks couldn't stop thinking about the woman. Years passed. Then, one day, he wrote to her, asking if he could return. Bring work clothes, she replied, and good boots, and come quickly: her health was failing. And so he travelled to the edge of the Arctic to witness her last season on the island. This is the story of that season. It is the story of a unique and ancient landscape, and of the woman who brought it back to life. As Rebanks follows her from the rough, isolated toil of bitter winter into the summer light, his understanding of her life and work - and of his own - is utterly transformed. What began as a journey of escape becomes an extraordinary lesson in self-knowledge and forgiveness.