NIKI WOLF

Riding the back of a 36-ton gray whale can be rather dangerous, but for early coastal Indians, it was all in a day's work.
While the colonies were fighting for their independence, Catherine the Great sent her explorers down the northwest coast of North America in search of sea otters for their rich fur.
The Russian explorers were the first white men these coastal Indians had ever seen. Some peacefully traded with them, some didn't. The fierce Haida Indians from the Queen Charlotte Islands ki...