a strong rebuke to the monks, but to Father Herman, it must have seemed like a recognition of his work to befriend the Natives and of their respect for him.
Despite Father Herman’s efforts to educate the children, Rezanof contradictorily wrote to Moscow that the clergy—and Father Herman, in particular—were not doing enough to subjugate the Natives to the Company’s needs. This kind of two-faced behavior was typical of Rezanof, and in an act of particular hypocrisy he accused the priests of mistreating the Natives. Unknown to both Baranov and Father Herman, Rezanof had also been pocketing the generous salaries sent by Empress Catherine II to support the Orthodox mission. After totally disrupting the status quo in Russian America, Rezanof set sail for California, where he inserted himself uninvited upon the Mexican governor, got himself engaged to the governor’s teenage daughter, then departed for Russia just as suddenly as he had arrived. Fortunately for everyone except Rezanof, he died on his return trip to Russia, before he could have any further impact on the activities of Baranov or Father Herman.
By 1807, Father Herman was in charge of the Orthodox mission in Kodiak. After several years of increasing tension and deprivations, Father Herman decided that he could no longer continue his work among the community of Russians he had come to serve. His only recourse was to leave Kodiak and relocate to nearby Spruce Island.
Father Herman settled on the southeast end of the island near a small community called Selenie, or Settler’s Cove, which later became known as Monk’s Lagoon, or New Valaam. There, he built a small chapel and, over time, an orphanage and eventually a school for Native children. It was the first Western-style school in Alaska. For the rest of his life, Father Herman dedicated himself to preaching and teaching the Natives, and for this he was highly revered. Assisting him in his efforts was a Native woman whom he called Mary.
He also found a champion in Lieutenant S. I Ianofskii, who became chief manager of the RAC in 1818. Ianofskii also happened to be married to Anna Baranovna, widow of Alexander Baranov, who had died on his way back to Russia in 1819 after being relieved of his duties as chief manager of the colony. Anna was also a full-blooded princess of the Kenaitze tribe from the area now known as Prince William Sound. During an epidemic of disease among the Aleuts, Father Herman tirelessly attended the sick and devoted himself to their healing. Seeing his efforts, Ianofskii ordered additional funding and supplies be sent to Father Herman and the orphans in his care. Later in his life, Father Herman served as protector to Anna Baranovna, who moved to Spruce Island after the death of her husband and was later buried near Father Herman’s chapel in 1836.
Although his work among the Natives was enough to earn him a place in Alaskan history, Father Herman is mostly remembered for a singular event. One day there was a terrible earthquake. The Koniags did not know what caused earthquakes, but they knew they were often followed by giant waves (what we now call a tsunami), and they were afraid. They feared that a giant wave would wash ashore and wipe out their village so close to the water. They pleaded with Father Herman to appeal to his god for divine intervention. Father Herman rose to the challenge. Picking up an icon of the Lord, he walked down to the edge of the water in the small cove. Placing the icon on the sand, he stood and announced to the assembled crowd that the water would rise no higher than this icon. To their great relief, it did not. From that time on, the small cove was known as Icon Bay.
Father Herman died in 1836 and was buried beneath his small chapel. Over a century later, in 1970, he was canonized as Saint Herman, the first Russian Orthodox Saint from the New World. His canonization was based primarily on the “miracle” worked at Icon Bay, when he saved the Natives from an impending immersion. Every year, on August 11, a pilgrimage to Spruce Island occurs. Natives and Russian Orthodox believers travel to Spruce Island where they hold a celebration for Father Herman. Some come from as far away as California or New York to attend. Even now, 170 years after his death, Father Herman still calls the faithful to Spruce Island.
CHAPTER 3
THE
SINKING
THE NEWS SPREAD QUICKLY IN the small village. The Kad’yak had hit a rock and foundered, and had been left adrift. The captain and crew had all returned safely. This was the greatest excitement the town had experienced in years. With little else for entertainment, news and gossip was the centerpiece of village life. Everyone wanted to know, and many wanted to see. Soon, small boats were being launched by Natives, Russians, and Creoles. They all wanted to see the Kad’yak before it sank. By evening, a small flotilla of boats had arrived on scene. Most were baidarkies (a Russian invention based on the baidarka), sealskin boats, carrying two or three persons, paddled out onto the ocean. Going out to sea in March was generally risky business for any vessel, but the weather was good, and the baidarkies were extremely seaworthy craft. Their design had evolved over centuries of use by local natives, who were quite adept at navigating them in almost any weather.
To the amazement of the small fleet, the Kad’yak had not sunk completely. It was awash up to its gunwales, with just the foc’sle and the masts sticking up above the water as it bobbed up and down in the swells like a sleeping whale. It still had enough surface area above water to catch the wind, and it was drifting along on the surface like a giant piece of flotsam. The next day, it was still afloat. Captain Arkhimandritov came out to see it himself in a small launch. By now it had drifted to the north, under command only of the mild southern breeze. He considered trying to salvage it, but it was of no use. They had no other boats that could be used to tow it. Even if they managed to tie it up to a fleet of baidarkies, they could not overcome the power of the current and wind, pushing it to the north. And if it sank suddenly, it would take them all down with it. Besides, the cargo could not be salvaged. Better then to let it just drift and see where it went. Who knew, perhaps it would wash ashore on a beach where it could be salvaged.
Many wondered why the Kad’yak hadn’t sunk yet and began to talk of miracles. Arkhimandritov knew better, of course. Though the spring equinox had arrived and winter temperatures somewhat abated, the ocean in March was at its coldest temperature of the year. Surrounded by tons of ice-cold seawater, the cargo of ice had stayed mostly frozen in the bowels of the ship. Kept afloat by its cargo of ice, well insulated in the hold, the Kad’yak had become a wooden-hulled iceberg, floating in the Gulf of Alaska. For three days it drifted as the winds held steady, first from the southwest, then the south, and finally from the southeast, driving the ship closer to shore. On the fourth day the ship finally came to rest, grounded out in the shallow waters offshore of Ostrov Elovoi, the Spruce Island. There, the cargo of ice finally melted, and the ship settled into the bottom, becoming a permanent fixture of the island.
More amazing than its four-day return to shore is the location where the Kad’yak came to rest. Selenie Bay, or Settler’s Cove, was a name in common use for just about any little cove where Russians settled. On Spruce Island alone, there were at least two, maybe three, coves with similar names. But this particular cove happened to be the place where Father Herman had lived, taught, died, and been buried. The Kad’yak had come to rest in Icon Bay, or Monk’s Lagoon, right in front of his chapel. And when it finally settled to the bottom, only the mainmast remained standing out of the water, with its topgallant spar horizontal and the main yard slightly tilted, forming the shape of the Russian Orthodox cross.
The symbolism of this was not lost on the Russians or the Natives. Was it divine providence or an accident? To top it off, Arkhimandritov’s failure to honor his promise, to make a devotion to the saint, soon became common knowledge. Whether he had told this story to one of his friends or crewmen, the holy cat was out of the bag. Among the faithful in the community, there was only one explanation for the wreckage: Arkhimandritov had failed Saint Herman, and Saint Herman had claimed his ship.
THE SINKING OF THE KAD’YAK was a great loss to the Russian-American Company. In a letter to the RAC offices in St. Petersburg, the manager in Sitka could hardly contain his exasperation that a captain as experienced as Arkhimandritov could run onto a rock in such a well-traveled location. Although Alaska was littered with semisubmerged rocks that were a danger to ships, so many ships had sailed in and out of Kodiak Harbor that authorities wondered if it were a new rock that had just recently appeared:
“It is strange, that