Editor: Owens, Kenneth N.; Author: Translator Donnelly, Alton S.
Paperback; 5 Illustrations, 2 Maps
136 pages
Published: April 2001
University of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803286155

In 1808 the Sv. Nikolai, owned by the Russian American Company, set sail from New Arkhangel (modern-day Sitka, Alaska) to explore and identify a site for a permanent Russian fur trading post on the mainland south of Vancouver Island. Heavy seas drove the ship aground in late December, forcing twenty-two crew members ashore, including Anna Petrovna Bulygin, the wife of ship captain Nikolai Isaakovich Bulygin. Over the next several months the shipwrecked crew clashed with Hohs, Quileutes, and Makahs, but with little knowledge of the country, the castaways soon found themselves owing their lives to the very tribes they had fought with upon arrival. The tribes captured and enslaved several of the crew members. In 1810 an American captain sailing for the Russian American Company ransoIn 1808 the Sv. Nikolai set sail from New Arkhangel to explore and identify a site for a fur trading post on the mainland. Heavy seas drove the ship aground, forcing crew members ashore. This volume combines two source accounts of the event: the story of a Russian survivor; and a Quileute account.