ALA Booklist (Mon Feb 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

While on a kayak trip in Alaska, 14-year-old Andy Galloway sneaks away during the night for a quick, private visit to the site where his archaeologist father fell to his death. On his return to camp, shifting winds and tides sweep Andy out to sea. Seeking shelter on a neighboring island, he receives unexpected help from a mysterious island inhabitant. De Ocampo has a young, earnest voice and narrates both the action and meditative passages with feeling. His gravelly reading of the wild man's words dramatically contrasts with Andy's more innocent-sounding speech patterns. Fascinating historical facts sprinkled within the narrative add substance to the engaging plot. Hobbs' many fans will be delighted.

Horn Book (Thu Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2002)

Fourteen-year-old Andy, on a southeast-Alaska kayaking vacation, sets off to find the spot where his father had years earlier fallen to his death. A sudden gale sweeps his kayak onto the inhospitable shores of Admiralty Island. A Newfoundland dog leads him to a mysterious cave inhabited by a "wild man." This well-paced, believable survival adventure story is enhanced by a map and an author's note.

Kirkus Reviews

In Hobbs's ( Down the Yukon , 2001, etc.) latest wilderness survival tale, a Colorado teenager stranded on Alaska's remote Admiralty Island not only encounters bears, wolves, and a hermit with Stone Age weapons, but makes a startling archaeological discovery to boot. Separated from his fellow kayakers by a sudden gale, Andy fetches up ashore, freezing, soaking, and with no supplies except a credit card. Things go downhill from there, especially after a desperate meal of raw shellfish brings on a temporary bout of paralysis. Andy is saved by a friendly dog who leads him to a meeting with David, a huge, shy recluse who had faked his own death a decade before to live entirely off the land. Distrusting David's intentions at first, Andy flees into a system of caves, and finds a burial site that turns out to be thousands of years older than any human remains previously found in the Americas. Andy faces challenges with admirable courage, and his descriptions of woods, wildlife, and the spectacular cave formations he discovers have a ring of authenticity that makes his hardships and adventures as compelling as any of Gary Paulsen's. In the end, everyone wins: David reluctantly sacrifices his solitude to take Andy back to civilization, but then assumes a new role as caretaker of the archaeological site, which allows him to return to the island without entirely losing touch with the outside world. A rugged, satisfying episode for outdoorsy readers. (author's note) (Fiction. 10-13)

School Library Journal

Gr 5-9-Set in contemporary Alaska, this adventure yarn follows 14-year-old Andy as he nears the safe conclusion of a guided sea kayaking trip with the nagging thought that he ought to visit the nearby site of his father's accidental death nine years earlier. Sneaking off from the group on the last day, he is soon blown away by a nasty storm. Washed ashore on wild and remote Admiralty Island, he faces starvation, food poisoning, cold, bears, wolves, and the mysterious bearded giant of a man he calls "the Wild Man." Neatly tying together strands of the plot involving his archaeologist father's theories about the early exploration and settlement of North America with episodes that involve caving, wildlife, and a huge Newfoundland dog, Hobbs resolves the story's complexities in ways that protect the characters' integrity and, to a large extent, readers' need for credibility. The author's note explains the mixture of personal experience and collected facts and fictions on which the book hangs in such a way that interested readers might well be persuaded to speculate about the theories posited or investigate those theories with additional research of their own.-Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Junior High School, Iowa City, IA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.