The turquoise ocean washed the sandy shore. Thousands of birds called on the rocks. The wind whipped across the bright, rolling tundra. Hundreds of black fur seals lay sunning themselves on the shore. Dark brown Arctic foxes occasionally darted between the seals in search of food scraps. On a clear September day, I saw Bering Island for the first time, glistening in the North Pacific between Kamchatka and Alaska.