Chatham Strait, or Shee ya xhaak in the Tlingit language, is a narrow passage of the Alexander Archipelago in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Alaska. It separates Chichagof Island and Baranof Island to its west from Admiralty Island and Kuiu Island on its east.
It is 150 miles (240 km) long [1] and extends southward from the junction of Icy Strait and Lynn Canal to the open sea. The strait is deep and 5–16 km (3–10 miles) wide.
The meanings of the parts of the name in the Tlingit language for Chatham Strait are as follows: Shee, Baranof Island; Ya, face; Xhaak, Center. The southern part of the strait was named Ensenada del Principe in 1775 by Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra. In 1786 La Perouse gave it the name Tschirikow Bay, and in 1789 the fur trader James Colnett named it Christian Sound. Other early fur traders called it Menzies Strait. It received its present name in 1794 when George Vancouver named it Chatham Strait in honor of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham; [1] Chatham Sound, farther south in British Columbia, was named by Vancouver for his son John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, whose brother William Pitt, was Prime Minister of Great Britain. [2]
The City and Borough of Sitka, formerly Novo-Arkhangelsk under Russian rule, is a unified city-borough in the southeast portion of the U.S. state of Alaska. The city is situated on the west side of Baranof Island and the south half of Chichagof Island in the Alexander Archipelago of the Pacific Ocean. As of the 2010 census, Sitka had a population of 8,881.
The Stikine River is a river, historically also the Stickeen River, approximately 610 kilometres (380 mi) long, in northwestern British Columbia in Canada and in southeast Alaska in the United States.
Alexander Andreyevich Baranov, sometimes spelled Aleksandr or Alexandr and Baranof, was a Russian trader and merchant, who worked for some time in Siberia. He was recruited by the Shelikhov-Golikov Company for trading in Russian America, beginning in 1790 with a five-year contract as manager of the outpost. He continued to serve past the end date of his contract.
The Alexander Archipelago, a 300-mile (480 km) long archipelago of North America, lies off the southeastern coast of Alaska. It contains about 1,100 islands, the tops of submerged coastal mountains that rise steeply from the Pacific Ocean. Deep channels and fjords separate the islands and cut them off from the mainland. The islands shelter the northern part of the Inside Passage as it winds its way among them.
Kuiu Island is an island in the Alexander Archipelago in southeastern Alaska. It lies between Kupreanof Island, to its east, and Baranof Island, to its west. The island is 105 km (65 mi) long, and 10 to 23 km wide. It is nearly cut in two by Affleck Canal. It has 1,936.16 km2 (747.56 sq mi) of land area, making it the 15th largest island in the United States. The entire island is part of Tongass National Forest. The population was 10 persons at the 2000 census. It is separated from Baranof Island by Chatham Strait.
Sumner Strait is a strait in the Alexander Archipelago in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is about 80 miles (130 km) long and 10 miles (16 km) wide, extending from the mouth of the Stikine River to Iphigenia Bay on the Gulf of Alaska, separating Mitkof Island, Kupreanof Island, and Kuiu Island on the north from Zarembo Island and Prince of Wales Island on the south.
Chichagof Island, or Shee Kaax, is an island in the Alexander Archipelago of the Alaska Panhandle. At 75 miles (121 km) long and 50 miles (80 km) wide, it has a land area of 2,048.61 square miles (5,305.9 km2), making it the fifth largest island in the United States and the 109th largest island in the world. Its coastline measures 742 miles. There was a 2000 census population of 1,342 persons. It is one of the ABC islands of Alaska. Chichagof Island has the highest population of bears per square mile of any place on Earth.
Lynn Canal is an inlet into the mainland of southeast Alaska.
Peril Strait or Háat Ishkáak is a strait in the Alexander Archipelago in southeastern Alaska. It is between Chichagof Island to its north and Baranof Island and Catherine Island to its south. The strait is 80 km (50 mi) long and reaches from Salisbury Sound on the west to the Chatham Strait on the east. It is entirely within the limits of the City and Borough of Sitka.
Baranof Warm Springs is a small, primarily seasonally-occupied community located in the city and borough of Sitka, Alaska, on the eastern side of Baranof Island, from which it likely derives its name, in the Alexander Archipelago. It is occasionally referred to simply as Baranof. Baranof Warm Springs is located at 57°05′22″N134°49′59″W.
Warm Springs Bay is a 2.4 mile-long bay located just outside the small community of Baranof Warm Springs on Baranof Island in the Alexander Archipelago, Alaska. Warm Springs Bay receives the outflow of Baranof Lake and Baranof River. Warm Springs Bay is located at 57°04′49″N134°48′12″W.
Sitka Sound is a body of water near the city of Sitka, Alaska. It is bordered by Baranof Island to the south and the northeast, by Kruzof Island to the northwest and by the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. During the early 19th century it was a major locus of the maritime fur trade.
The Vancouver Expedition (1791–1795) was a four-and-a-half-year voyage of exploration and diplomacy, commanded by Captain George Vancouver of the Royal Navy. The British expedition circumnavigated the globe and made contact with five continents. The expedition at various times included between two and four vessels, and up to 153 men, all but six of whom returned home safely.
Milbanke Sound is a sound on the coast of the Canadian province of British Columbia.
Princess Royal was a British merchant ship that sailed on fur trading ventures in the late 1780s, and was captured at Nootka Sound by Esteban José Martínez of Spain during the Nootka Crisis of 1789. Called Princesa Real while under the Spanish Navy, the vessel was one of the important issues of negotiation during the first Nootka Convention and the difficulties in carrying out the agreements. The vessel also played an important role in both British and Spanish exploration of the Pacific Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands. In 1790, while under Spanish control, Princesa Real carried out the first detailed examination of the Strait of Juan de Fuca by non-indigenous peoples, finding, among other places, the San Juan Islands, Haro Strait, Esquimalt Harbour near present-day Victoria, British Columbia, and Admiralty Inlet.
Chatham Sound is a sound on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada, bordering on Alaska, United States. It is located between the Dundas and Stephens Islands and the Tsimpsean Peninsula near Prince Rupert. It is part of the Inside Passage and extends from Portland Inlet in the north to Porcher Island in the south.
Fort Stikine was a fur trade post and fortification in what is now the Alaska Panhandle, at the site of the present-day of Wrangell, Alaska, United States. Originally built as the Redoubt San Dionisio or Redoubt Saint Dionysius in 1834, the site was transferred to the British-owned Hudson's Bay Company as part of a lease signed in the region in 1838, and renamed Fort Stikine when turned into a Hudson's Bay Company post in 1839. The post was closed and decommissioned by 1843 but the name remained for the large village of the Stikine people which had grown around it, becoming known as Shakesville in reference to its ruling Chief Shakes by the 1860s. With the Alaska Purchase of 1867, the fortification became occupied by the US Army and was renamed Fort Wrangel, a reference to Baron von Wrangel, who had been Governor of Russian America when the fort was founded. The site today is now part of the city of Wrangell.
The maritime fur trade was a ship-based fur trade system that focused on acquiring furs of sea otters and other animals from the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and natives of Alaska. The furs were mostly sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain, and other Chinese goods, which were then sold in Europe and the United States. The maritime fur trade was pioneered by Russians, working east from Kamchatka along the Aleutian Islands to the southern coast of Alaska. British and Americans entered during the 1780s, focusing on what is now the coast of British Columbia. The trade boomed around the beginning of the 19th century. A long period of decline began in the 1810s. As the sea otter population was depleted, the maritime fur trade diversified and transformed, tapping new markets and commodities, while continuing to focus on the Northwest Coast and China. It lasted until the middle to late 19th century.
Baranof Island, also sometimes called Baranov Island, Shee or Sitka Island is an island in the northern Alexander Archipelago in the Alaska Panhandle, in Alaska. The name Baranof was given in 1805 by Imperial Russian Navy captain U. F. Lisianski to honor Alexander Andreyevich Baranov. It was called Sheet’-ká X'áat'l by the native Tlingit people. It is the smallest of the ABC islands of Alaska.
Cholmondeley Sound is a deep bay or inlet on the southeast side of Prince of Wales Island, in the Alexander Archipelago of southeast Alaska, in Tongass National Forest and connecting to Clarence Strait. The sound's entrance lies between Chasina Point and Skin Island. It is about 20 miles (32 km) west of Ketchikan, Alaska. Cholmondeley Sound has several bays and inlets within it, including Kitkun Bay, Dora Bay, Brennan Bay, and Sunny Cove. At its western end Cholmondeley Sound splits into two fjord-like inlets: West Arm Chomondeley Sound, about 7.5 miles (12.1 km) long, and South Arm Cholmondeley Sound, about 8 miles (13 km) long. The full length from the entrance of the sound to the head of West Arm is about 16 miles (26 km).
Coordinates: 56°57′54″N134°37′32″W / 56.96500°N 134.62556°W
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