Heimo is probably taking his royalty money and buying a satellite TV and drilling a hole into that giant pool of untapped oil for heating his soon-to-be castle.  With his royalty wealth he can afford to pay some Inuits to do his trapping for him, while he is hot tubbing with a few artic bunnies trying to find the inspiration for his next paycheck/'true' life adventure story.  
I haven't read it but it sounds interesting.
Ever read 'North with the Cree'?  About those 2 teenagers who set out for the arctic from St.Paul.  Written by that newsguy Erik Severide...I think.  Short, but interesting.  Last year I was in the Ely Ice Cream Parlor, and the woman who manages the place said that she and her husband did the same trip the past year....it sounded like quite an adventure, but how much can you really hear over a large chocolate malt ?  She looked as though she made it all in one piece, but I didn't see a wedding ring....so maybe there was more to the story than she was willing to tell a tourist on a just-out-of-woods sugar high.