America 1860s. A young man from the outback, twenty years old, was given a magical chance to experience adventures that he had only read about. In three years, he will write a book that contains all this: stormy seas and snowy mountains, roaring volcanoes and endless tundra, travel on horses, reindeer and dog sleds, Russian Cossacks and Kamchadals, smoky yarangas of the Chukchi and Koryaks, polar lights and Arctic mirages , terrible frosts and fierce snowstorms, and dangers, dangers and dangers... And this book also contains humor and self-irony, and an unbending will to win.