The Battle of Shee Atika by Rodger Bolles

The Battle for Shee Atiká Captain Alexsei Chirikov landed in Alaska on July 16, 1741. He was so rudely met by the Tlingit that it was fifty years before the Russians returned. When Alexander Baranov clawed his way ashore, seeking land and otter pelts he too was met with ferocious resistance in a bloodcurdling night attack. The struggle between Europeans and aboriginals animates Captain Yurii Lisianski’s quest for Russian wealth, power, and fame as he completes the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe. Enroute, he and his ship, the Neva, support Baranov in warfare against the Tlingit, led by Yaskadut, a shaman of the Kiksadi of Sitka. The story is told from two points of view: Russian and Tlingit. Chapters alternate between Lisianki’s circumnavigation and Yaskadut’s boyhood in the Alaskan rain forest. The ship’s log provides historical support for the Russian view. Tlingit anthropological studies and oral histories inform that of Yaskadut. Chapters stage and fall with the rhythm of the sea. Christian orthodoxy collides with Tlingit animisim. European “civilization” confronts aboriginal “savagery.” This clash of alien cultures threatens genetic extinction for the Kiksadi. Resist and die or join and be bred into oblivion. The story is based on historical fact. Liberties were taken to express the essence of the thing..