I recently finished the Ivan Doig novel The Sea Runners. The plot here is that four Swedes have ended up for various reasons in New Archangel in Russian America (today's Sitka, Alaska) in 1853. All fettered with seven-year indentures, they plot to escape by taking a canoe down the Pacific coast to Astoria, Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia River. The novel works as a historical adventure and as the type of story where very different people come together to work on a common task, but Doig was clearly a more developed writer by the time he wrote the Montana trilogy books recently reviewed here. Unless you have a specific interest in the subject matter, I'd pass this one up in favor of the Montana books.