We flew down to Old Harbor in a plane not unlike our old Antonov. A small crowd was on hand at the macadam airstrip to greet Sven, the town's best-known globetrotting ethno-archaeologist.

Only one tell-tale building confirms that we are in Alaska: the picturesque, blue-domed Russian Orthodox Church, the oldest such parish in the Western Hemisphere.

Copyright © 1995 Discovery Communications, IncPhotos by: Marion Stirrup