After fourteen-year-old Andy slips away from his kayaking group to visit the wilderness site of his archaeologist father's death, a storm strands him on Admiralty Island, Alaska, where he manages to survive, encounters unexpected animal and human inhabitants, and looks for traces of the earliest prehistoric immigrants to America.

Seaman, the Newfoundland dog belonging to Meriwether Lewis, keeps an account of their adventures during the journey to the Pacific.

Sequel to: The great cat conspiracy. Suzanne is delighted when her Great-Aunt Deidra leaves her Newfoundland, Beatrice, to Suzanne's mother, but Beatrice is old, slow, and has serious stomach issues which Suzanne and Anna must try to fix before Dad sends another dog away.