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Ten-year-old Misha Alexandrov sails to Alta-California's north coast in 1827 as an uninvited member of the Russian American Company. Even before he steps foot into the Russian colony of Fort Ross, his heart is captivated by the beauty of the coast and a longing to call it home. He is soon aware of an urgency to prove his worth as a working member of the colony. As an orphan of a Russian father and an Aleut mother, he must also overcome the perception that he brings with him a bag of bad luck. Testing at the hands of a tyrannical foreman forces him to develop the mental strength to stand up to the waves of prejudice and self-doubt that threaten to pull him from the shore he comes to love. Ultimately, the orphan discovers that it is neither the mixed blood that flows through his veins nor the cultures he admires that will define him, but the land itself.