As the book progresses and his hardships in the harsh Arctic environment take their toll (at one point Poncins runs 1400 miles behind a dog sled), he begins to find a new appreciation for the Inuit way of life, for their intelligence and resourcefulness, and experiences a spiritual awakening, ultimately reaching a point where he discovers that he himself has become so well adapted to the Inuit way of life that he is no longer a "kabloona" and has become one of them.