For here were his _people_.

Here were the men and women who were guarding the northern door of the world, an epic place, filled with strong hearts, courage, and a love of country as inextinguishable as one's love of life.

From this drab little place, shut out from all the world for half the year, young men and women went down to southern universities, to big cities, to the glamor and lure of "outside." But they always came back.

Nome called them.

Its loneliness in winter.