Welcome to Deception Island, a tiny Volcanic caldera in the Antarctic Ocean. Here the rusting remains of industrial whaling and a seabed littered with whalebones testify to mankind's greed and brutality. But the island is also an outpost of scientific exploration, witness to human attentiveness and fortitude.

As the ship carrying the author's father edges through the basalt cliffs into the calmer waters of Deception Island, the island's many voices, human and non-human, begin to speak.