The Ghost of the Kenai
Hideous screams rage over the Kenai River as a ghost haunts the Russian fort on the bluff! The foreboding specter brings doom as one youth prepares to face manhood while another searches for the key to his past. Life will be changed forever when the screams stop.
In 1796, the men at Fort Kenay or Russian Redoubt Saint Nicholas are terrified. A ghost, a woman in a tattered white dress, screams nightly along the banks of the Kenai River below the bluffs where the fort stands. Young Nicholas arrives with Captain Zaikov on his fur trading ship from Russia at the fort. Nicholas is sent by powerful people in Russia to accomplish a task, yet no one knows anything about him. An Orthodox priest is among the arrivals in search of a missing missionary. The fort is in disrepair and the men are terrified that the ghost is the legendary Rasulka from Russian folklore.
As Nicholas embarks on his quest, he befriends Acts Quickly, the son of the Denaina Chief from the nearby Native village. Acts Quickly soon leads Nicholas on a path to solving the mystery of the ghost while revealing the terrifying truth of what is happening at the fort. Nicholas admires the Native youth, who faces the impending doom that has come upon Kenai and will change him into a man. As the Russian and Native worlds collide, Nicholas comes to realize that Acts Quickly will endure like the river and land while the Russians must face the evil they brought with greed, violence and cruelty.
"Hardy grew up in wild Alaska, a childhood enchanted with arctic wildlife and her gift for storytelling. Her writing captures Alaskan homesteading: the dream to build a home in serene and quiet lands; and, at the same time, filling their home with love, imagination, wholeness, and grit. Hardy’s storytelling provides an Indigenous voice to Alaskan writing, while honoring the storytelling traditions of her Peoples.” ~Lily Tuzroyluke, author Sivulliq Ancestor
"In Windswept: Chitina Alaska Childhood, Hardy describes a life with many chores and responsibilities, but also filled with the magic of nature. The reader can feel the change in life that went along with the change in seasons. . . . This book would be appropriate for readers of any age who can read chapter books in addition to being enjoyable for adults. ~ Allison Sayer in the Copper River Review
Windswept: Chitina Alaska Childhood
Award winning author Aurora Hardy looks back fondly at her Alaskan childhood in the 1960s and 1970s. She shares her adventures growing up in a cabin called Windswept overlooking the mighty Copper River south of Chitina, Alaska.
Award winning illustrator Pyrce Raphael brings the stories to life with whimsical illustrations for the stories he listened to in his childhood.
Available online in print and ebook at
Windswept: Tales for Children
An illustrated children’s story of the animals that lived at Windswept and were part of Aurora’s childhood experiences. A book for parents to share with their children as they follow along with Aurora’s adventures.
From the Copper River Record Review "a nine-year-old consultant was "genuinely engaged in the stories, wondering what would happen next. She also loved the cartoon quality of the illustrations. Her review: "I think it’s really awesome." Her father Tim appreciated that the end of the book featured natural history facts about Alaskan animals to share."
Available online in print and ebook at
Read more about Aurora Hardy and Pyrce Raphael
Alaska Native Quarterly: Page A001 | Alaska Native Quarterly
Cynsations: Author & Illustrator Interview: Creative Team Mary Tony & Pyrce Raphael Share Their Alaska Native Heritage in Windswept - Cynthia Leitich Smith
Copper River Record: Windswept: Homestead Tales from Chitina Review
About the Author and Illustrator
Aurora Hardy
Aurora Hardy grew up on the banks of the Copper River in Southcentral Alaska, without electricity or modern conveniences. She was homeschooled and entertained herself by reading voraciously. Aurora also wrote, keeping a journal, making a "newspaper" and recording the beauty of the land in poetry. She was published several times in Howard Rock’s Alaska Native newspaper, The Tundra Times.
In 1986, Aurora became one of the first Indigenous women to graduate from the University of Montana School of Forestry. Her work demanded technical and scientific report writing, but Aurora always dreamed of writing her own stories. In late 2003, she published Terror at Black Rapids, about a terrorist attack on the Alaska Pipeline. Ramona's Gift published in paperback in 2006; earlier the story won the Rural Alaska Storytelling Contest in 2003 and the Tall Mountain Award in 2004. As Aurora worked, raised children and became a grandparent, Aurora wrote stories and poems. The City of Kenai chose one of her poems about a dog walking the beach in a contest in 2019.
In 2020, Aurora read Alaska at 50 by George Kimura. She saw she was mentioned in the book as one of the few contemporary Alaska Native fiction writers. Inspired by being noted as an author and by the life-changing Covid 19 pandemic, Aurora decided to see if she could get her manuscripts reviewed by publishers. The endeavor resulted in three books being published. Windswept: Chitina Alaska Childhood and Windswept: Tales for Children, based on biographical stories from Aurora’s childhood, were released in 2024. An historical fiction, The Ghost of the Kenai, revisits the violent period of Russian occupation of the Kenai area and will be released in January 2025. Here prior works include Terror at Black Rapids, Ramona’s Gift, and poems published in the University of Alaska Permafrost Anthology, She received the Mary Tall Mountain Award for a short story.
Aurora has survived racism, mission boarding school, 1964 earthquake and tsunami, poverty, and many other challenges facing Native women. Her imagination helped her through many adversities. In dreaming stories and poems, she found strength and courage to hope for a better future. Aurora is dedicated to inspire reading to young Alaskans.
See Aurora's salmon catch on the cover of Alaska Native Quarterly Summer 2024 issue and read more about Aurora on page 16.
Pyrce Raphael
Pyrce Raphael grew up in Alaska. He enjoys salmon fishing and sports. Pyrce is shown here enjoying a beach on Cook Inlet, Alaska.
He enjoys drawing and art. He won several awards for his art from the Department of Agriculture and Nintendo. Pyrce wanted to bring the stories he listened to as a child into vivid whimsy for others to enjoy.