0n the last day of a sea kayak trip in southeast Alaska, fourteen-year-old Andy Galloway paddles away from the group. He's on a mission of the heart. His father, an archeologist, died only a few miles away. A sudden gale propels Andy across the strait. He swims ashore, freezing and barefoot, onto Admiralty Island, an immense wilderness of forests, rain, and bears.

When hope of rescue fades, Andy starts walking. Starvation leads him further into the wild and into danger. He encounters a dog running with wolves, and later a man dressed in cedar-bark clothing, carrying a stone-tipped spear. The Wild Man vanishes into the forest, but the dog reappears and leads Andy to ... the Wild Man's lair, at the mouth of a cave.

It's fear that drives Andy into the cave and to the adventure of a lifetime. What's at stake are the discoveries Andy's father died trying to find, the answers to the most exciting puzzle in American archeology -- who were the first Americans?