Titch travels to the Arctic to find his father

Titch travels to the Arctic to find his father, abandoning the shared journey with Washington Black in order to discover what happened to Sir James Wilde and see his resting place for himself. The northward voyage becomes both a quest for family truth and a rupture in Washington’s belief that Titch will keep him safe: it brings Titch to a living Peter House, but its outcome also sets the pair on the path toward separation.

The decision to go north

Titch tells Washington plainly that he is going to the Arctic. He says he will not be satisfied until he finds out what happened to his father and sees the resting place with his own eyes. For Washington, who had expected them to continue their journey together, this is a sudden change in their shared future. Titch frames the decision as a matter of survival as well as purpose: he tells Washington to go, so that Washington can save his own life. The expedition begins, then, not as a joint adventure freely chosen by both, but as Titch’s pursuit of an unanswered family question and Washington’s reluctant encounter with being left behind.

Washington reflects that he had already formed some notion of what life with Titch might be, and that his choice at this turning point was made in only moments. Looking back, he refuses to claim that he would choose the same way again. The path behind, he recalls learning from Big Kit, cannot be retaken; the recollection gives the decision a double edge, preserving both the pull of the life he imagined and the irreversibility of what followed.

Passage from Norfolk

Titch and Washington secure passage aboard the Calliope, a newer ship than the Ave Maria, captained by Michael Holloway. Holloway is not a slaver, but he maintains a firm distinction between Black and white people. His second, Jacob Ibel, treats Washington as a human being and seeks him out for games of whist and pinochle, though Washington likes him without trusting either officer. The ship’s racial order shadows the expedition from its outset: reaching the North does not mean leaving prejudice behind.

Before they board, Titch uses money supplied by Edgar Farrow to buy clothing, provisions, and equipment. They sail two days later at dawn. As the vessel leaves port, Washington notices a short, well-dressed man watching from the boardwalk. He catches Titch’s sleeve and tries to draw his attention, but by the time Titch looks, the stranger has disappeared into the crowd. The unsettling glimpse accompanies their departure, while the immediate terms of the voyage are set by Titch’s payment: Holloway agrees to detour from the ship’s plans and drop them at an outpost on Hudson Bay.

At sea, the journey unfolds over many days of steady movement north. Washington remembers green ocean swells, white seabirds, and sails crackling in the wind; for a time, the days remain fine. He trusts Titch and believes that only in Titch’s keeping will he be safe, without yet understanding how much Titch may fear finding his father alive or fear Mister Willard. That trust and the voyage’s apparent calm stand in contrast to the separation Titch has already announced.

The reunion with Peter House

Near the Bay and its trading post, the travelers leave the ship and transfer to a small cutter. The post consists of leaning wooden shacks beside calm black water speckled with ice. There they encounter Peter House, whom Washington initially sees as a threatening stranger: tall, gaunt, and weather-beaten, with ice-crusted caribou clothing, a grey beard, and a conspicuous boil beside his nose.

The recognition overturns the expectation of death. Titch grips the stranger’s hands; Peter grabs him back, and the two hold on, laughing quietly. Neither speaks. Washington learns that the man is Peter House himself, present by chance to collect goods, and watches the pair communicate through elaborate gestures. Peter is unable to speak and talks with his hands. Titch understands him, nodding repeatedly, then wipes at his eyes. His relief is unmistakable, even as the revelation leaves him exhausted and sad. Washington understands that the report of his father’s death was a lie: Titch’s search has found not a grave but a living man.

Into the Arctic interior

After the reunion, Titch sets out with Washington and Peter by sled, accompanied by a guide and a team of dogs. Peter’s wordless conversation has brought relief, but Titch also appears drained; he places a cold, thin hand on Washington’s shoulder as they approach the waiting sled. The guide secures Peter’s pack, gives a command to the dogs, and the travelers move into the snow.

Washington recounts the journey as a bodily ordeal rather than an abstract passage across a map. The sled’s blades bump over packed snow and scrape against it; blankets wrap the travelers until they can barely move. Wind carves the snow into towers, precipices, and chasms. Washington rejects the simple description of snow as white: under shifting light he sees blue, green, yellow, teal, and delicate pink, and compares its changing hues to an ocean that is never merely blue. The cold, too, becomes an active force, drawing warmth from the blood and cutting through skin.

The expedition proceeds north, then west, then north again. During a rest, the guide ties the dogs to stakes to keep them from attacking one another. Washington makes a quick pencil sketch of the animals, struck by their ferocity; he eats a small cube of blubber, which Titch identifies, despite its rank, oily taste. The detail links the perilous route to Washington’s persistent habit of observing and drawing what surrounds him. Meanwhile, neither he nor Titch speaks much about their destination or what they have left behind. Washington thinks of Faith Plantation as though it belonged to a vicious, distant dream.

Arrival at the father’s camp

The party leaves in darkness, travels swiftly through the day, and arrives late in the afternoon as darkness begins to fall again. Washington has noticed Titch growing increasingly uneasy, as if he is not yet ready to meet his father alive. At the destination, the guide stops the sled among five large forms in the snow. Peter unloads the wooden crates that have served as the travelers’ backrest while Titch and Washington wait in silence.

Washington’s first impression is of five snowdrifts, but he realizes they are domes of ice arranged in a rough pattern, with hides hanging over their entrances. The place strikes him as a site of resurrection. Peter gestures and points toward the third dome. The journey’s stated goal has thus brought Titch to the threshold of his father’s Arctic camp; for Washington, the arrival is also an encounter with a landscape and way of life beyond anything he had imagined. The discovery answers the question that sent Titch north, while leaving the consequences of their reunion—and the future of Titch and Washington’s companionship—unsettled.