Content Warning: This section include several deaths (including death of a child) as well as descriptions of dead and injured animals.

Karana is only 12 when the Aleuts, an Indigenous group from Alaska, come to her island home. She spots their ship as she gathers edible roots with her six-year-old brother, Ramo, an inquisitive boy who is as quick and “foolish as a cricket” (1). Neither of the children have ever seen a ship before, but Karana recognizes it from descriptions she’s heard. As the ship approaches, Ramo likens the unfamiliar sight to a cloud, then to a red whale, and lastly, to an enormous canoe. In his excitement, he abandons his task and races back to the village of Ghalas-at. Karana wants to hurry home too, but stays behind to finish digging roots even though her hands shake with excitement.

The Aleut ship sails into Coral Cove, and the men of Karana’s village take up arms and hurry to the shore to meet their uninvited visitors. Instead of joining the village’s women at the mesa (a natural elevation separate from the beach), Karana hides in the bushes at the edge of a cliff overlooking the cove and listens in on the men’s meeting.