In September 1808, the Russian American Company schooner Sv. Nikolai sailed from Sitka on a reconnaissance expedition to New Albion under Captain Nikolai Bulygin, with Anna Petronva Bulygin, promyshlenniks, Englishman John Williams, and five men and two women from the Alutiiq Tribe on Kodiak Island. Under orders from Governor Alexandr Baranov, the party sought a base for hunting, trading, and agriculture in hopes of establishing a permanent colony, with sea otter pelts and trading beads intended to support the venture amid an opening for Russian colonization from Sitka south to San Francisco. A planned spring rendezvous at Grays Harbor with the RAC ship Kad’iak and the opening of a new settlement were undone when, in late October 1808, a violent storm off the Northwest coast caused the schooner to lose its rudder and drift until it grounded on a black sand and gravel beach about a mile and a half north of the mouth of the Quillayute River near the Quileute settlement at La Push. After narrowly escaping sea stacks and rocky islets, the survivors salvaged what they could and came ashore in a region inhabited by the Quileute, Hoh, and Makah. As Quileute warriors investigated the campfire and cargo, the promyshlenniks pushed them away; the warriors responded with stones and spears, and the Russians fired muskets, after which the warriors fled, leaving two dead by the beach camp.