Ringing Bird

A SYNOPSIS

In the middle of the twelfth century on the island of Sitka in Southeast Alaska, a young Tlingit boy, YASIKOO, stands with tears in his eyes on the rocky wet beach of SHEE-ATIKA. He is thirteen, has finished his initiation and now at this first opportunity to prove his new manhood, is ordered to stay behind. His father, KAA-SHAADEI and seven other men are on their way by canoe to an important trading mission to the Stahkin River in the south. Some inner fear, some deep knowing tells Yasikoo that his father and the others are headed into grave danger. He tries in vain to warn them.

AAKA-LIGOAN, Yasikoos grandmother is a powerful shaman. She has the ability to see future events. Carefully, she has been encouraging and preparing her grandson for the most important decision of his life. Grandmother tells him about the wondrous gift coming to him from across the great water, GANOOK, the petrel.
At the gathering in Hoonah for the High Chief CHAAK SE, Yasikoo and his mother KEIOLADEE learn that Kaa-shaadei and his men have been taken prisoner and are now slaves of the TAHLTAN tribe. Their captor is the strange foreign giant REDHAIR. He has white skin, green eyes, and hair the color of salmon flesh.

Yasikoo grows impatient with the slow careful planning of the elders and decides to go alone to rescue his father. Before he leaves a terrible storm washes the wreckage of a large boat ashore on Middle Island. On this wreck Yasikoo finds a bronze casting of a seabird. While prying this thing loose it falls to the rocks below and rings. It rings. No one here has ever heard a sound like this. No one here, Yasikoo knows, has ever seen anything like this. This is Ganook, the gift from the sea that his grandmother spoke of. Perhaps with this amazing thing Yasikoo can buy his fathers freedom.

Yasikoo leaves now to face the wild and stormy Southeast Alaskan coast alone; to face the frightening Redhair alone. With courage and wisdom beyond his years, Yasikoo wages a strange intense battle against his enemies. He faces death; His grandmothers power sustains him. He faces enormous fear; the faith and legends of his ancestors embolden him. He faces terrible loss; grief strengthens him. He faces victory and victory will change his life forever.