The Wreck of the Sv. Nikolai: Two Narratives of the First Russian Expedition to the Oregon Country, 1808-1810, edited and contextualized by Kenneth N. Owens with primary accounts by Russian supercargo Timofeĭ Tarakanov and Quileute elder Ben Hobucket, is a 1985 maritime and ethnohistorical volume published by the Oregon Historical Society. The book chronicles the ill-fated 1808 voyage of a Russian-American Company ship that ran aground on the rugged Olympic Peninsula, leading to a desperate overland struggle and the eventual captivity of the surviving crew by the region's Indigenous coastal tribes. What makes this work exceptionally significant is its dual perspective: it directly pairs Tarakanov’s detailed, firsthand journal of the survivors' enslavement, survival tactics, and eventual ransom with an enduring Quileute oral history of the exact same encounter, passed down through generations. Ultimately, it serves as an indispensable and highly nuanced primary-source resource for regional historians and ethnographers seeking to understand the complex early cultural collisions, Indigenous diplomacy, and the brief, ambitious reach of Russian colonial enterprise along the Pacific Northwest coast.

1800-1899, Expedities, History, Indians of North America First contact with other peoples, Indians of North America First contact with other peoples Oregon Territory, Oregon (Territoire) Histoire, Oregon Territory Description and travel, Oregon Territory History, Quileute Indians First contact with other peoples, Rossiĭsko-amerikanskai︠a︡ kompanii

Introduction The narrative of Timofei Tarakanov The narrative of Ben Hobucket Appendix: Ivan Petrov's fraudulent Tarakanov document

First work, translation of: Krushenie Rossiĭsko-amerikanskoĭ kompanii sudna "Svi︠a︡toĭ Nikolaĭ," pod nachalʹstvom shturmana Bulygina, pri severo-zapadnykh beregakh AmerikiSubtitle: The narrative of Timofei Tarakanov, translated from the 1874 Russian edition and the narrative of Ben Hobucket, a Quileute oral traditionIncludes index

First work, translation of: Krushenie Rossiĭsko-amerikanskoĭ kompanii sudna "Svi︠a︡toĭ Nikolaĭ," pod nachalʹstvom shturmana Bulygina, pri severo-zapadnykh beregakh AmerikiSubtitle: The narrative of Timofei Tarakanov, translated from the 1874 Russian edition and the narrative of Ben Hobucket, a Quileute oral traditionIncludes index