The Sea Runners

Based on an actual incident in 1853, award-winning author Ivan Doig’s The Sea Runners is a spare and awe-inspiring tale of the human quest for freedom.

“Goes beyond being ‘about’ survival and becomes, mile by terrible mile, the experience itself.”— New York Times Book Review

In this timeless survival story, four indentured servants escape their Russian Alaska work camp in a stolen canoe, only to face a harrowing journey down the Pacific Northwest coast. Battling unrelenting high seas and fierce weather from New Archangel, Alaska, to Astoria, Oregon, the men struggle to avoid hostile Tlingit Indians, to fend off starvation and exhaustion, and to endure their own doubt and distrust.

“The sea, wind, space, are palpable in this exquisitely worked book. And not the least of its charms is the liveliness with which it explores a forgotten corner of North American history.”—Thomas Keneally, Booker Prize–winning author of Schindler’s List