Sea Cows, Shamans, and Scurvy: Alaska's First Naturalist: Georg Wilhelm Steller

By Ann Arnold and Ann Arnold

On June 4, 1741, Georg Wilhelm Steller set sail from Avacha Bay in Siberia on the St. Peter , under the command of Vitus Bering. The crew was bound for America on the last leg of an expedition whose mission was to explore, describe, and map Russia's vast lands from the Ural Mountains across Siberia to the Kamchatka Peninsula, and possibly lay claim to the northwest coast of America - if they could find it, for no European had ever reached America by this route. Officially, Steller was the ship's mineralogist, but in practice he was its doctor, minister, and naturalist as well. Appointed to the expedition in 1737 by the Academy of Science in St. Petersburg, he was sworn to secrecy concerning any discoveries. Making judicious use of Steller's richly detailed journals and liberal use of illustrations and maps, Ann Arnold allows the reader to join Steller on this fascinating voyage and its final dangerous mission, which left half the crew dead and the rest suffering from scurvy.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374399476
• ISBN13: 9780374399474
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.6" x 0.9" x 6.4"
• Age Range: 12 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grade 5 and higher

Customer Reviews

Delightful read in the vein of similar children's books on Darwin

I found Sea Cows, Shamans, and Scurvy to be an ideal fit for our little homeschool unit study on explorers, navigation and natural history. We needed a change from tales of American and British explorers and hadn't read much about Siberia previously so this fit the bill. I picked this title by chance from our library and was quickly attracted by its highly readable language and quirky pen and ink illustrations. Great as a read aloud too...but if you have highly-sensitive little children, you should be aware that the author mentions disease and death. Readers who enjoyed The Voyage of the Beetle by Anne Weaver may enjoy this book too.