Abstract: Otto von Kotzebue, the second son of the acclaimed German playwright and accomplished mariner himself, was asked by the Russian Chancellor to serve as captain of an expedition to the South Sea from 1815-1818 that was meant to strengthen Russia’s leadership in world politics and find a way through the Northeast passage. Kotzebue’s narrative complements Adelbert von Chamisso’s report and diary from the same expedition in interesting ways that foreground the relationship between humans and the natural world. The explorer narrative of the early nineteenth century is a site for the articulation of the aesthetic concept of cultural landscape, i.e., a landscape that contains a mixture of wild and man-made elements.