In the far-flung reaches of Siberian Russia there’s a place unlike any other on earth. A place nine times zones from Moscow. A place so far east it’s almost west. A place called Kamchatka, the snowbound Eden. One hundred thousand lakes; 300 geysers; 414 glaciers; 100 volcanoes all crammed into a peninsula the size of California.

But it’s also a nuclear no-go zone. Off-limits to the world for most of the 20th century. In fact, more Americans have been into outer space than have crossed Kamchatka in the last hundred years.

It’s into this unforgiving icebox cold corner of the world that David Adams goes in search of the last of the Itelman, the semi-legendary wild men of Siberia’s Far East.