The Ice-Shirt is set in the 10th century A.D. and chronicles the arrival of the Norse people in Greenland, Vinland, and the Arctic.

The novel blends historical fiction, modern journalism, and the elaborate mythology of the peoples in question, which include Norse, Mi'kmaq, and Inuit.

In addition to the story itself, The Ice-Shirt comprises a preface, a foreword and afterword, glossaries (of characters; places; "dynasties, races and monsters"; and of primary texts), a chronology, and a list of secondary texts.

Illustrations by the author (such as his drawings of Icelandic plants, his renderings of ancient maps, and a self-portrait) and free-ranging footnotes are interspersed throughout the book.

The story proper is told in four parts (called movements) with a total of 25 chapters.