In early 1872, Newburyport's ship Montana found herself in the midst of the Indian Ocean with a fire in her cargo hold.  That cargo consisted of over a thousand tons of ice loaded in Boston and destined for Hong Kong.  In these dire circumstances, the ship Montana and her crew must race against time and the elements to survive.

Speaker Clarisse A. Poirier holds a Ph.D. from Boston University and is a Professor Emeritus of History at Merrimack College.  As an industrial and labor historian, she has published articles on the collapse of the Pemberton Mill in Lawrence in 1860, and the local leaders of the Lawrence Strike of 1912.