Baffin Island is identified in the novel as the site of the Magnolia Lion’s wreck, where a cache of whale oil becomes the object of a planned recovery. Though the evidence here describes the island chiefly through other characters’ accounts rather than a narrated visit, it connects the remote Arctic setting to maritime risk, remembered testimony, and the practical value attached to stranded cargo.

The Wreck and the Oil

The whaler Magnolia Lion was crushed in the ice off Baffin Island roughly two Novembers before the conversation in which its fate is discussed. Mister Ibel explains that the crew had unloaded the barrels before setting out again, taking them to a nearby small island and burying them beneath a shelter. He expects the oil to remain where it was left, reasoning that the island itself would not drift with the ice.

How the Location Becomes Known

The information reaches Mister Ibel through Mister MacBane, a Scottish sailor who had shipped out of Yorkshire aboard the Magnolia Lion. MacBane had been trapped in the snow and suffered severe frostbite; after he later became seriously ill, he told Ibel about the wreck and the oil’s location and value. At MacBane’s bedside, Ibel noticed a handwritten map, adding a material trace to the account that could guide the search.

A Place of Risk and Opportunity

For Captain Holloway and Mister Ibel, the stranded oil offers the prospect of a profitable undertaking. Titch recognizes the commercial promise but also asks whether the ice might have carried the wreck north, exposing the uncertainty of trying to locate it in a moving Arctic landscape. Baffin Island thus anchors a venture shaped by both the persistence of the buried cargo and the dangers and shifting conditions of northern waters.