Hyperborean

"...It's a Hyperborean winter scene...." (Chapter 3)

In Greek mythology, according to tradition, the Hyperboreans were a mythical people who lived far to the north of Thrace. The Greeks thought that Boreas, the North Wind, lived in Thrace, and that therefore Hyperborea was an unspecified nation in the northern lands beyond Scythia. Their land, called Hyperborea or Hyperboria — "beyond the Boreas (north wind)" — was perfect, with the sun shining twenty-four hours a day. [Melville is using it to contrastingly portray a nice winter.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperborean. See also, Nietzsche, The Antichrist:

Let us look each other in the face. We are Hyperboreans -- we know well enough how remote our place is. "Neither by land nor by water will you find the road to the Hyperboreans": even Pindar, in his day, knew that much about us. Beyond the North, beyond the ice, beyond death-- our life, our happiness...