In Hawaiian mythology, ancestors may occupy the physical forms of animals known as ‘aumākua. Laysan albatross — known as mōlī — are among them. Smitten with these charismatic creatures, Osterlund set out to learn everything she could about mōlī. She eventually came to embrace them as her ‘aumākua — not as dusty old myths on a museum bookshelf, but as breathing, breeding, boisterous realities. This is the story of how albatross guided the author on her own long journey.