The Great Land

For more than a hundred years after Europeans began populating the Atlantic shores of North America, the Pacific coast of the continent remained a blank on their maps and in their minds. When Russians from Siberia first sighted the mountains of Alaska in 1741, they called it the Great Land. In fact, they were glimpsing at just a part of a 4,000-mile stretch of virgin coastline, reaching from Western Alaska to Oregon to Southern California. As far away as Spanish Mexico, all was uncharted and unk…