Totem

By James Hadman

When Abraham Petrovich leaves his native Russia to join the 1741 Bering Expedition of Discovery to explore what is now Alaska, he can only think of finding his fortune in a strange new land.
That vision comes to an abrupt halt, however, when he and a shipmate are captured by Tlingit natives near present-day Sitka after a horrifying bear attack.
Abraham's ability to adapt to an alien culture is tested, and with the help of the village chief and guidance from his wife, he fits into what he discovers is a complicated society.
The shaman wants to kill the whitefaces, but the chief wants to learn from the strangers. When the shaman conspires to get his way, Abraham and his surviving family flee Sitka fearing for their lives.
Finding refuge in Klawak, Abraham immerses himself in Tlingit life-not knowing that he'll soon make an eerie discovery on a deserted beach that will solidify his place among the Tlingits.
Abraham continues his incredible journey, seeking whitefaces like himself, but he ultimately finds something much more valuable as he explores the land and meets new people in Totem.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Hadman
• Release date: Nov 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781773024912

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 James Hadman.

Cover art is On to the Potlatch a painting by Sydney Laurence.

The image is courtesy of Braarud Fine Art, La Conner, WA

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

For Karen, whose constant support and patience helped make this book become a reality.

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Sitka to Tuxekan:

1-St. Paul Landfall

2-Massacre Site

3-Camp Site During Flight

4-Island Camp After Flight

Boxes: Sitka, Shakan, Whale Head, Tuxekan

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Tuxekan to Howkan:

5-Herring Camp

6-Killer Whale Encounter

7-Shipwreck Site

8-Black Sand Beach

9-Narrows Dividing Tlingit From Haida Territory

10-Head Eating Monster Camp Site

Boxes: Tuxekan, Shakan, Whale Head, Klawak, Kasaan, Howkan,

Route to Haida Gwaii and Trading Ground

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Tuxekan to Klawak:

A-Otter Encounter

B-Herring Camp

C-Shipwreck Site

Boxes: Whale Head, Tuxekan, Klawak

Prologue

I have lived in Klawak, a small Tlingit village on the west coast of Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska, for my entire life. After completing my freshman year at Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka, I flew home. My first evening was a welcome-back dinner with my family. My grandmother had written me weekly during the school year and was looking forward to the gathering. All my family came to greet me, but she didn’t. I was concerned.

Mother explained that Grandma hadn’t been feeling well this past winter and rarely left home anymore. I’m worried too, David. I don’t know why she didn’t come. It’s too late now, but I’ll call in the morning.

The phone rang a few minutes after seven in the morning. It was Grandma, and she wanted to see me.

As usual, rain was falling as I set out on the short walk to her house. She saw me coming, and as I reached for the doorknob, the door swung open and Grandma said, Well, you took your time. After I shed my rain gear, I gave her a hug.

Clad in her customary floor-length black dress, and leaning on her cane, she turned, crooked her finger over her shoulder like a Dickens ghost, and beckoned me to follow. She led me into her bedroom and opened the closet door. After pushing the hanging clothes to one side, she pointed to a blanket-draped mound on the floor.

Help me with those, David. I don’t bend over so good anymore.

I removed the blanket. Even in the gloom of her closet I could make out two carved wooden boxes on the oak floor. I picked up the smaller one, which was about the size of a case of beer. Grandma took it from me.

I can get that, I said, but she was already shuffling toward the kitchen with it tucked under her free arm.

I’m okay. You bring that other one. It’s heavier, she said over her shoulder, her long white braid swinging. Grandma cranked up the rheostat of her old wagon-wheel light fixture as we placed both boxes on the kitchen table.

I had seen old-fashioned Northwest Coast pieces like these before. They are called bentwood boxes because of the way they are made. A single, very wide, red cedar board is steamed and scored, then cleverly folded three times along its length to make the four sides. The bottom is a separate, closely fitted board laced on tightly with spruce root fibers. Then the top fits tightly over the sides with an inch or two overlapping the edge of the box.

These old-timers were dark and battered, but I could make out carved and painted figures on their surfaces. Raven, one of our clan symbols, folded his wings around the corner of the larger box.

With a hint of a smile on her lips, Grandma nodded as I traced the beak of the bird with my forefinger. Go ahead and open it. She watched me closely as I worked the lid loose.

It swooshed as it parted company from its box, and a musty smell assaulted my nostrils. Stories of opening the mummy’s tomb came to mind, and I considered asking if a curse was involved here. One look at Grandma squelched my urge to make a wisecrack.

The box was crammed full. On the top was a cracked and faded leather-bound book. Brown bundles, each about the size of my hand and of varying thicknesses, were packed around and under the book. Each bundle was neatly secured with a strand of spruce root. Everything fit together like puzzle pieces. I picked up the book and gingerly opened it. The first couple of pages were just columns of numbers. The rest were covered with a very tiny cursive script. I couldn’t read a word.

I closed the book and replaced it in its spot. Then I picked up a bundle and carefully tugged what I took to be the free end of an unusual knot. It fell open in my hand, and I was looking at a light-brown, irregularly surfaced sheet of bark. It was covered in the same nearly microscopic scrawl that filled the other sheets, trailing up one margin and down the other. I was puzzled.

I looked inquiringly at Grandma. Take care, David. You are holding our true history in your hands.

The outer sheet was a bit thicker, a protective cover, but the inner pages and their scribbles were intriguing. I was straining to make them out when Grandma took a magnifying glass she used to read her mail out of an old whalebone basket, a familiar object, and handed it to me. The glass helped, and I got a good look at the writing.

Were these sheets a tangible link to our Native past? When I was just a kid, Grandma had filled my head with stories of spirits and witches. Could these musty little pages tell tales such as those? What other revelations might they hold?

Family history was my grandmother Lois Abraham’s specialty. Everything I knew about our heritage I had learned from her. We were predominantly Tlingit and Haida, but the blood of Russians and Swedes also ran in our family line. Like most young Native Alaskans, I had already learned that the Native part of our mixture was not good currency in the white man’s world. If you wanted to succeed, you learned the white man’s ways.

At that time I was enrolled in the school of business at college, studying to be an accountant. I was the only child from our family who’d ever gone beyond high school, and I had a pretty elevated opinion of my talents. However, not only could I not read this stuff; I could barely make out an occasional letter.

Do you know what this scribbling is, Grandma?

She reached up to tuck a vagrant strand of hair back in the yellowed-ivory hair ornament that held her braid, a pair of clasped hands. She had worn it for as long as I could remember. Her face crinkled in a broad smile.

That is Russian writing, David. Your great-great-great-grandfather, a very powerful man, wrote all those words about the old days. Now that you’re going to that fancy school up north, I was sure you’d be able to read it.

Not wanting to admit that I couldn’t read Russian, I stalled. Where did you get these boxes? I don’t recall ever seeing them before.

The reason you don’t remember is because you have never seen them. I don’t just blab everything I know.

Don’t get upset, Grandma. I think these could be important.

"Of course they’re important. They are the written record of our heritage. My mother gave them to me for safekeeping shortly before she died, just as her mother and her mother before her did. These boxes contain the actual writings of our ancestor. He wrote about things he saw and experienced. You know all the stories I told you as a boy? Those tales have been handed down through the years, and they’re good, but they are only as accurate as the storyteller’s memories.

The older I get, the more suspicious I am of my own memory. Over time, even with the best of intentions, small little changes creep in. What is most important about these writings is there has been no change, not one detail lost or added since your ancestor wrote our history. These writings tell the truth about the old days. Rather than just passing them to your mother, I have decided this is the time for our story to be told. You must be our next storyteller, David. And you’re lucky: you won’t have to rely on the memories of us old-timers.

Maybe Janice could do this. She’s right next door, close to the boxes, not in Sitka like me.

Janice was my older sister. I had a momentary flash of hope that she could rescue me from the responsibility, not to mention the drudgery, I saw lying before me. I should have known better. Grandma spat toward the wood-burning cookstove. I hadn’t seen her do that in years. I knew the answer before she said a word.

I wouldn’t trust that girl to pick huckleberries. No, David. You’re the smart one. You’ve always paid attention to my stories. You respect our traditions.

I could tell her mind was made up, but I tried once more. Janice is smart, and she’s good with language. She took Spanish in high school.

Grandma laughed. This isn’t Spanish. She smiled at me. Don’t worry. It won’t be hard for you to learn Russian. It’s in your blood. You’ll have to hurry though; I have to pass the boxes to your mother soon.

That ominous comment got my attention. In our family, the men made the decisions about when and where to fish and hunt and build things, but the women had authority for family decisions. Grandma had decided, and I was stuck with no hope of weaseling out of this monumental task. There was no point in telling her I was studying to be an accountant—not a linguist. Having to learn Russian was a complication I didn’t need. Heritage or not, my schooling had done nothing to prepare me for this task. I would have to start all over again. As I had on any number of occasions, I accepted Grandma’s decision. I would become the next storyteller.

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That fall I went back to school and enrolled in Beginning Russian. To my surprise, once I had mastered the alien Cyrillic alphabet, the rest fell into place. Within six months, I learned to decipher the minute scrawl and then transcribed the first pages of the old leather-covered journal into contemporary Russian. Inside its front cover, the writer had written his name and a date—1737. That entry was more than two hundred years old. I translated those first pages from Russian to English with a trembling hand. My relative’s name was Abraham Petrovich, and he had lived for many years among the Natives of Southeast Alaska.

His account predated the earliest known reports of white men’s contact with my people by many years. Grandma’s wooden boxes truly did contain a major historical document.

Much to my father’s disgust, I changed my major from business to anthropology and ethnography. For the next two years, I spent summers at home working on the contents of the boxes, while my father and brothers were getting rich seining humpies.

After I graduate, I hope I’ll have more time to work on this project. Grandma is eager to have me finish, but progress has been slow. Even though it’s not yet complete, my great—and then some—grandfather’s narrative is amazing. Not only a keen observer of Native life, Abraham also tells us of his historic trek across Siberia, his winter with the Chukchi, a fateful voyage, and his subsequent long life among my people. Parts of his candid narrative are painful to read but must have been far more painful to live.

His chronicle of travels and life among the Tlingit and Haida peoples, in a world forever lost to us, is a treasure. His is surely the only eyewitness account ever written before contact with white civilization altered the course of Native history forever.

I will do my best to tell his story to you as I think he would have told it himself. Wherever he is, I hope Abraham Petrovich approves.

—David Abraham

Klawak, Alaska

July 15, 1958

Chapter 1

15 January 1741

My short entry detailing our departure on June 11, 1737, began my story. Back then I felt I was the most fortunate man alive. Through the influence of my father, I had secured a billet with the Bering Expedition. On that date, my detachment departed St. Petersburg to cross the wilds of Mother Russia and then sail across the unknown Eastern Sea. My plan was to seek my fortune in the new lands we would discover. After three and a half challenging years, even though I’ve changed, my ambition hasn’t. My winter with the Chukchi people has merely whetted my appetite. I am ready to continue my adventure …

—from the journal of Abraham Petrovich

A s a young man, I was taller than average, with a strong, healthy body and natural agility. These attributes, plus my father’s influence, won me official acceptance to the Bering Expedition. I was enlisted as a recorder for the surveyors. During my long journey, the entries on first pages in the handsome journal my poor dead mother gave me were mostly latitude and landmarks I recorded along our route. To keep it dry and close at hand, I carried my book around my neck in a waterproof pouch.

My youthful enthusiasm made easy work of required arms training. I became skilled with spear, sword, bow, and most important of all, the musket.

My detachment was charged not only with crossing the wilderness of Russia and Siberia but also with mapping a safe route. After that, we were to set sail, cross the Eastern Ocean, discover, and lay claim to the unknown land rumored to border its far side. Such an ambitious agenda! I imagined it was my destiny to play a significant role in Mother Russia’s glorious history.

Visions of returning home a wealthy fur trader—everyone knew Siberia simply swarmed with valuable furbearers—and lording it over my stodgy brother helped keep me alive during the more than three-year-long torture that was the trek across the aptly named wastes of Siberia.

I learned skills that would keep me alive during those trials. Some members of my expedition didn’t learn their lessons well, and as a consequence, they perished. Some drowned; others died from gunshot wounds. I witnessed a savage brown bear killing two unfortunates, who lost their lives while trying to free their boat from a gravel bar in a shallow stream. The jarring contrast of their bright blood staining the clear water stuck in my mind.

In the fall of 1740, we rode our barges down the river to Okhotsk where the two new ships that were to carry us across the Eastern Sea were being outfitted. Captain Bering’s plan was to build a port and a stockade at Avacha Bay, a safe harbor on the outside coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula that had easy access to the ocean.

To get there, we would have to sail across the Sea of Okhotsk before it froze over and build that base. All hands were put to work preparing the ships to make that trip. I joined the men working on the rigging. I was no seaman, but soon proved to be the equal of any of the sailors when it came to going aloft. I had no fear of heights, and before long, my skill and strength won not only the respect of the sailors but also the attention of Alexei Ilyich Chirikov, captain of the St. Paul, who signed me on as his third mate.

We left Okhotsk in October and, upon arriving at Avacha Bay, found work on the new base well advanced, with a safe harbor for the ships already complete. A stockade with snug cabins was under construction and would provide shelter during the rapidly approaching winter. Unfortunately, there was only enough room and food for our leaders and the shipwrights to winter over within the walls. Our leaders, comfortably settled into the cabins, assured us expedition members lacking shipbuilding skills that any native Chukchi village would welcome a hunter with a musket. All we had to do was trek north along the wild coast until we found a winter refuge.

The message registered, and the increasing chill that penetrated my body motivated me. So, just as I had for the past three years, I shrugged my shoulders, slapped the ice from my bushy red beard, and secured my pack to a small sledge. With my musket on one shoulder and the strap for hauling my sledge over the other, I slogged out in search of a winter refuge.

Just after dawn on the morning of the sixth day of my bleak quest, I was crossing the ice of a frozen inlet when I heard dogs barking. Musket in hand, I stood ready to face any threat. Suddenly, three caribou burst from the low ground fog. Heads held high, tongues lolling, eyes rolling in panic, they raced straight toward me, pursued by a pack of dogs. Not having had a decent meal in days, what I saw was fresh meat. I aimed and fired. A caribou dropped. All but one of the dogs continued chasing the other two. The exception was a wolfish animal that leaped on the dying caribou and seized it by the throat. I pulled my sledge over to the kill and chased off the snarling dog, which grudgingly retreated to sit on its lean haunches and watch my every move.

I was nearly finished dressing the animal when I realized I had more spectators than just the dog. Three smallish men bundled in lumpy skins were squatting on the ice about twenty paces away. I lunged for my musket before I realized that their bows and arrows were still sheathed on their backs. I smiled. They smiled back. Could these men be the villagers who would welcome a hunter with a musket for the winter? I gestured for my potential hosts to come closer. They hesitated, but then one man, clearly the oldest, approached. I cut a generous piece of meat off the caribou and held it out to him. He took the steaming gobbet and crammed the whole chunk into his mouth. He chewed a time or two, swallowed it whole, and graced me with a bloody smile. That was the cue for the other two to crowd close while I cut more pieces off the carcass. My three new friends seemed well on the way to consuming the entire animal, raw, right on the spot.

When they’d had their fill, the leader took a thong from around his neck, tied it to what remained of my kill and motioned for me to follow as they dragged it. I pulled my sledge with the dog pack trailing along behind and stopping now and then to eat bloody snow.

We trudged several hours before arriving at their camp. As we approached, more barking dogs erupted from three large dome-shaped skin-covered tents, followed by clutches of grimy-faced, bedraggled women wearing tattered skins and carrying swaddled infants. Lank-haired children in skin tunics and no pants held onto the women’s greasy skirts. This was not what I had envisioned for my winter quarters. Amplifying my misgivings, a little boy stuck out his tongue, licked a streamer of yellow snot from his upper lip, and peed in the snow while eyeing me.

I turned to go, but my stomach growled, reminding me of just how much time had passed since I had last eaten. The leader, grinning from ear to ear, like I was his long-lost brother, gestured for me to enter the closest tent. A vivid premonition of how it must smell inside stopped me momentarily, but even dressed as warmly as I was, the steadily falling temperature got my attention. Stink or not, the tent would be a definite improvement over camping on the tundra. Forced to bend nearly double, I followed my newfound friend through the low door. A separate inner sleeping chamber was centered within the outer tent with space in between for the dogs and daily activities. My suspicion was correct. The smell was appalling.

The leader, my new friend, surprised me when he gave me one of his daughters. She was a small, dark-eyed, young woman with a wide smile. Tossing her long, black braid behind her back, she took my hand and removed any doubt as to what our relationship was to be when she pulled me toward the inner tent. Thoughts of Brigitta, my unrequited love back in St. Petersburg, proved to be no obstacle as I followed the Chukchi girl inside.

I was taken aback that first night when all members of the clan threw off their clothing and joined us in the snug and dark fur-lined inner space. The enclosure, packed full of people, doing what people are inclined to do in such a situation, was heated solely by the warmth of our bodies and was always comfortable.

During those intimate winter nights, while teaching me her language, she gave me lessons in the ways of men and women, a subject I’d never learned in school. Even though I learned her language, I was never able to pronounce my girl’s Chukchi name. That didn’t bother her. She giggled in delight when I called her Tsarevna, my Princess.

I recognized an opportunity during that very long winter. Because no one back home could possibly comprehend what living in a skin tent in Siberia was like, I realized my experiences were worth recording. In January, I began writing my narrative by the light of a sooty, sputtering seal-oil lamp in the space between the inner and outer tents. I described my long trek and good fortune to have found this tiny band of humans with the skill to keep me alive in this unforgiving place.

At the first hint of spring, a few minutes of wan daylight, but lengthening each day, I was anxious to return to Avacha Bay and the expedition. I nearly shed a tear at leaving my warm and affectionate winter-wife, but I hadn’t come all this way across Mother Russia just to linger on the wrong side of the Eastern Sea. All of my extended family implored me to stay, and my Tsarevna wept openly as I made my farewells. Just before I shouldered my musket, the same small boy with the runny nose who had first welcomed me slurped another generous gobbet of snot from his upper lip and peed in the snow again. I had come full circle. I put the strap of my sledge over my shoulder and headed for Avacha Bay.

Despite the brutal winter, work on outfitting the two ships had continued. In late May, after the ice went out of the bay, the St. Peter and the St. Paul were rigged, provisioned, and ready to set sail.

The search for the furs that would make me and every other crewman rich was underway. How sweet it would be to return home wealthy enough to set up my own household! Let my older brother tend the old family estate, I would buy my own land and build my own dacha.

Chapter 2

16 July 1741

This late entry is the most difficult thing I have ever written. My long, arduous trek across Siberia to the shores of the Eastern Sea, followed by our voyage to the Great Land, has come to a tragic end on the sunny shore of a black-sand beach …

—from the journal of Abraham Petrovich

O n the fourth of June in the year 1741, Captain Commander Bering gave the order and both ships of the Great Northern Expedition weighed anchor, set sail, and headed out onto the unknown Eastern Sea to discover new lands for the tsarina. A light breeze carried us along in consort with our sister ship on a bright, sunny morning. The benevolent sun soon faded from view, when a fog bank rose from the water like gauzy curtains. The breeze freshened, sweeping billows of mist down between our ships. The St. Peter was lost from our view, yet still so close we could hear the shouted commands to her sailors, as clearly as if they had come from the quarterdeck of our own St. Paul.

Groping our way through fog seemed a fitting way to begin a voyage across a trackless ocean in search of an unknown land. The wonders we hoped to find were shrouded in a mist of their own, a mystery we would uncover. When the fog lifted, we were reassured to have our two ships once more sailing within sight of each other upon the immense, uneasy emptiness of the ocean.

Alas, this happy condition was not to continue. After a short but vicious storm from the south, the St. Peter was lost from our view. Captain Chirikov tacked back and forth, searching for a day and a night, but found no trace of our sister ship. On the twentieth of June, the captain set our course due east, and we pressed on.

The lookout spied land at dawn on the fifteenth day of July. We tried to close on the rugged, rockbound coast, but contrary winds drove the ship out to sea. After dark, the wind changed to a more favorable direction, and Captain Chirikov crowded on sail to make landfall. At dawn, the lookout shouted, Land ho! Dead ahead!

Our vessel lurched as whitecaps slammed against her hull. I clung to the rail that encircled the cramped quarterdeck, terrified at the thought of falling overboard. Combers broke over the bulwarks and filled the well deck. Wash ports slapped open, attempting to empty the seawater back overboard. Salt spray drenched us, but I dared not let go of the rail to wipe it from my eyes.

In the golden dawn, when my vision cleared, I gasped at the magnificent scene revealed by first light. A conical peak with alternate red and white vertical stripes thrust above the horizon off the port bow. Catching the morning sun, it glowed with promise. Surely every man among us would leave here wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.

We’ll make landfall this time! Captain Chirikov shouted in my ear. The tall, angular captain, who was quite deaf, always spoke at a volume that risked depriving me of my own hearing. I watched him achieve an impossible angle with the deck as he leaned into the wind to compensate for the ship’s heeling. Like a crooked mast on a hinge, he swayed as the ship rolled under him, standing easily without even reaching for a stay or lifeline. I shook my head. Just how long did a man have to spend at sea to develop such balance?

I unclenched my half-frozen fingers from the rail and curled them around the mizzen sheet. I succeeded in heaving a tiny bit of slack from the sail, flattening it in the wind, hoping that would help me stand on dry land a little sooner.

A sharply curving sea broke against the hull, drenching me in icy salt spray. As I spluttered and cleared the water from my eyes, I tried to persuade myself that the mountain was closer. I looked again and it was! The distinctive peak rose high above the low-lying, timbered land around it. In the distance behind the mountain rose a higher range of rugged white peaks. My blood moved faster, and it was easy to ignore my chilled hands and feet. For sheer discomfort, sea travel surpassed anything I had experienced during my long journey across Siberia. I longed to feel dry land underfoot once again.

I inched across the quarterdeck and shouted in the captain’s good ear, Can’t you just feel that peak beckoning us, sir? Where are we going to land?

Ham! What’s this about ham? The captain shouted back. How can you think about breakfast when that peak is beckoning us?

I looked at him and smiled. Having a conversation with the captain had its limitations, but Chirikov was definitely a seaman. He had earned my respect on that account, as well as my gratitude for being so kind to me. May I have the honor of taking the first boat ashore?

The captain dashed water from his eyes, although his eyebrows were so bushy they alone should have been able to keep him dry. Holding his hand against his forehead, shielding his view against the glare, he peered intently and then shouted. We’ll anchor in the lee of that island up ahead. You’ll take the longboat ashore with enough men to get us wood and water.

During the next hour, the leadsman, standing on the chains under the bowsprit, deciphered the code of cloth-and-leather markers as they passed through his skilled hands on the way down. He sang out the depths when the lead touched bottom, but his shout was not adequate for the captain who cupped his hands behind his ears and kept shouting. What’s that? Speak up, you fool. How deep was that?

I repeated the soundings for him as the ship edged her way along the coast in the lee of the land. The wind was blowing hard, but there was no sea, merely a gentle ground swell from the southwest.

We found anchorage in twelve fathoms of water in an open channel, sheltered from ocean swells by the sheer cliffs of the island. High, black bluffs of the coast below our striped mountain formed our northern border. Clouds of seabirds swirled around the island, which resembled an immense, black cake that had fallen in the middle with a green frosting of vegetation on top. To the delight of everyone aboard, we spotted dozens of sea otters floating on their backs eating shellfish and napping in kelp patches.

I soon discovered I wasn’t the only one eager to feel dry land underfoot. When I asked for volunteers, nearly the entire crew stepped forward. I could only take ten men. I studied their eager faces and made my choices.

You first, Ivan. We’ve crossed half the world together. I had come to admire the wiry sailor for his toughness, although he was a complainer. If I leave you on the ship, I’m sure I’ll hear about it.

I gestured to another favorite of mine, a balding man in ragged skin trousers, whose stained beard reached his waist. You, Dmitri. You’re the graybeard of this crew. You look like you could use another adventure before you die of old age.

A pink-cheeked youngster wearing a sealskin vest was waving his scrawny arms to catch my eye and succeeded. All right, Mikhail. You may be too young to grow a beard, but Dmitri has enough whiskers for the both of you. Come along. You’ll have stories to tell your grandchildren about this new land we’ve discovered.

Captain Chirikov smiled while watching me joke with the men as I made my selections. Even though I was only a few years older than the youngster, Mikhail, the older men respected me. I liked them and felt a responsibility toward them, and they appreciated that. When I had finished making up my crew, the men who had been left behind didn’t appear bitter. Even as keen as they were to get ashore, they simply accepted my decision and returned to their shipboard tasks.

We were issued muskets, and I stowed extra powder kegs and a heavy box of musket balls in the longboat. Two men helped me secure a small brass cannon to a swivel mount in the bow. The captain nodded his approval when I loaded and charged it with a double handful of musket balls. I was confident we were well-enough armed to stand up to whatever my shore party might encounter. After the hands on deck helped us load axes and water barrels, we were ready to depart.

Just before the longboat was swung over the side, Captain Chirikov handed me a parcel, and toning his command bellow down to a mere shout, he said, Here, take these damned things. I’ve carried them all the way across Siberia, and it’s a pleasure to give them to someone else. Crewmen suppressed smiles as he continued. Bering wants us to leave brass medallions scattered about to convince people that this country has been claimed for the tsarina. Build a cairn or something and leave them under it.

I wouldn’t want to fall overboard with these in my pocket.

The captain let out a hearty laugh and clapped me on the shoulder. I settled into the stern sheets of the longboat, and we were lowered into the water. With a final look behind, I caught the captain’s eye. He smiled and waved; I answered with a quick salute.

I steered a northerly course to pass to the east of a low, sandy point extending beyond the abrupt end of the black bluffs of the coast. I aimed the bow toward a broad, calm sound. As we rounded a point and lost sight of the ship, sun broke through the overcast. I guided the boat into the lee of the heavily timbered land. For the first time in more than a month, we were in calm water. A light offshore breeze merely rippled the vivid blue surface

The rowers were sweating from the unaccustomed heat of the sun, so I ordered them to slow the pace. We traveled a leisurely two miles along the coast, all of us eyeing the beach longingly, as we looked for a spot with both wood and water. I steered the boat between the shore and outlying reefs marked by anchored rafts of orange-headed bull kelp. Brown fronds streamed from the bulbous heads with the fair current as if pointing the way.

About three miles ahead, a low-timbered point jutted out into the sound, and I altered our course to pass it close by. As we rounded the point, a scene so pretty it could have been a painting in the Winter Palace opened up before us. A wide, black-sand beach, bordered at its top by piles of weathered driftwood, emerged from the blue of the water. Like a garland, it embraced the gentle curve of a protected cove. Sunlight danced on a silver stream, a bright ribbon, flowing across the dark beach. An intensely dark-green backdrop of forest marched away toward the heights of our lucky mountain.

Just look at this paradise, men, I said, turning the boat toward shore. Everything we need is right here for the taking.

They examined the inviting landscape as the longboat glided into shallow water and cheered when we touched bottom. When the bow crunched gently on the sandy beach, two sailors slipped over the gunwales to hold the longboat steady. At my command, the others shipped their oars. I gave permission, and the crew, save for Mikhail and me, jumped over the side, waded ashore, and eased the boat a foot or so up the beach.

I stayed in the bow close by the swivel gun as the men ran for the creek. Those hard-bitten seamen frolicked like children, running through the creek, throwing water on each other, shouting and splashing. This was as close as they had come to taking a bath for a very long time. After watching the frolic for a short while, I recalled them and assigned five to the wood detail and four to fill the water barrels.

Remember now. Stay alert and keep your weapons handy. We know nothing about this country. No one works alone. The wood crew picked up axes and muskets and headed up the beach; the rest rolled barrels into the creek. I kept Mikhail with me in the longboat to school him on handling the swivel gun. He was a quick student, and before long, I was satisfied that he had mastered the entire process from measuring powder to tamping down the musket balls. After he had practiced aiming and firing of the weapon, we settled back and lit our pipes.

What a fine day, I said, letting inhaled smoke drift lazily from my nose and mouth while listening to the ring of axes and the happy sounds of sailors filling water barrels. "God, this place is beautiful. It beats anything I’ve seen since St. Petersburg, Mikhail.

I do have one more job for you. Take these medals the captain gave me over to that point. I see quite a few rocks up by the high-tide line. Build a cairn and leave them in it. That should make the tsarina and Captain Bering happy.

I gave him the packet, and as he started across the beach, a musket shot boomed and echoed from the trees. Mikhail froze. I leaped up and grabbed the stock of the swivel gun.

The four sailors filling barrels looked back toward the woods. A woodcutter burst from the trees in full flight. A huge, brown bear, easily twice the size of the one I had seen slay the men in Siberia, was racing after him, moving ever-so-much faster than the hapless man. A single slash of its paw dropped the sailor to the beach, his light-colored shirt quickly turning crimson. The bear peered back toward the woods, and then I understood. Twin cubs were standing at the edge of the underbrush.

The sailors in the creek splashed frantically toward their muskets stacked together on the stream bank closest to the bear. The men and the bear met head-on at the muskets. The bear rose, standing on her hind feet, looming above the men. With two lightning blows of her paws, she laid open one man, and his bowels spilled onto the sand. She struck the second victim, and he dropped, with his head nearly torn from his shoulders.

One man managed to reach his musket and fired point-blank into the bear’s chest. Snarling with rage and pain, she leaped on him. He let out one scream before her mighty jaws closed on his skull. The last survivor of the water party turned to flee but stumbled over one of the barrels in the stream. The bear seized him in her mouth and whipped him over her shoulder the way a dog kills a rat. He hit the sand with a thump. His heels drummed on the sand, until he too was still. The bear stood again. With dark blood staining her muzzle, she swept the beach with her piggish eyes, seeking more attackers.

The devastating speed and confusion of the massacre had prevented me from firing the swivel gun for fear of hitting my men, but now I saw my chance and trained the gun on the bear. Mikhail reached the boat and grabbed his musket just as I bent over to retrieve the slow match from the metal box in the bow of the longboat. He ran a couple of paces in front of the bow then kneeled and fired at the bear. His ball hit the stream and merely splashed water on her.

The bear spotted Mikhail. She dropped to all fours and charged straight for him, running at full speed. Her huge paws kicked up puffs of