| Sitka Sound | |
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 Sitka Sound with Mount Verstovia in the foreground. | |
  Sitka Sound | |
| Coordinates | 56°58′22″N135°29′27″W / 56.97278°N 135.49083°W |
| Type | Sound (geography) |
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.
Sitka Sound was named Ensenada de Susto by Juan de la Bodega on 15 August 1775. It was later named Norfolk Sound [1] by James Cook. In 1801, Fleurieu published a map naming it Baie Tchinkîtâné in an attempt to use Tlingit toponyms. [2]
The Tlingit are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language, in which the name means 'People of the Tides'. The Russian name Koloshi or the related German name Koulischen may be encountered referring to the people in older historical literature, such as Grigory Shelikhov's 1796 map of Russian America.
The Russian colonization of North America covers the period from 1732 to 1867, when the Russian Empire laid claim to northern Pacific Coast territories in the Americas. Russian colonial possessions in the Americas are collectively known as Russian America. Russian expansion eastward began in 1552, and in 1639 Russian explorers reached the Pacific Ocean. In 1725, Emperor Peter the Great ordered navigator Vitus Bering to explore the North Pacific for potential colonization. The Russians were primarily interested in the abundance of fur-bearing mammals on Alaska's coast, as stocks had been depleted by overhunting in Siberia. Bering's first voyage was foiled by thick fog and ice, but in 1741 a second voyage by Bering and Aleksei Chirikov made sight of the North American mainland.
Totem poles are monumental carvings found in western Canada and the northwestern United States. They are a type of Northwest Coast art, consisting of poles, posts or pillars, carved with symbols or figures. They are usually made from large trees, mostly western red cedar, by First Nations and Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast including northern Northwest Coast Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian communities in Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth communities in southern British Columbia, and the Coast Salish communities in Washington and British Columbia.
The Battle of Sitka was the last major armed conflict between Russians and Alaska Natives, and was initiated in response to the destruction of a Russian trading post two years before. The primary combatant groups were the Kiks.ádi Clan of Sheetʼká Xʼáatʼi of the Tlingit nation and agents of the Russian-American Company assisted by the Imperial Russian Navy.
Indian River is a roughly eight-mile long watershed that flows through the community of Sitka on Baranof Island in the Alexander Archipelago of Southeast Alaska.
Peter Simpson (1871?–1947) was a Canadian-born Tsimshian activist for Alaska Native rights, and co-owner of the first Indian-owned business in Alaska.
Yakobi Island is an uninhabited island in the Alexander Archipelago of southeastern Alaska, United States. It lies to the south of Cross Sound and just off the western edge of Chichagof Island, separated from it by Lisianski Inlet and Lisianski Strait. The island has a land area of 82.37 sq mi (213.3 km2) and no permanent resident population.
Unga Island is the largest of the Shumagin Islands off the Alaska Peninsula in southwestern Alaska, United States. The island has a land area of 170.73 sq mi (442.188 km2), making it the 36th largest island in the United States. As of the 2000 census, it had a permanent population of one.
Nora Marks Keixwnéi Dauenhauer was a Tlingit poet, short-story writer, and Tlingit language scholar from Alaska. She won an American Book Award for Russians in Tlingit America: The Battles of Sitka, 1802 And 1804. Nora was Alaska State Writer Laureate from 2012 - 2014.
Richard Dauenhauer was an American poet, linguist, and translator who married into, and subsequently became an expert on, the Tlingit nation of southeastern Alaska. He was married to the Tlingit poet and scholar Nora Marks Dauenhauer. With his wife and Lydia T. Black, he won an American Book Award for Russians in Tlingit America: The Battles of Sitka, 1802 And 1804
Louis Situwuka Shotridge was an American art collector and ethnological assistant who was an expert on the traditions of his people, the Tlingit nation of southeastern Alaska. His Tlingit name was Stoowukháa, which means "Astute One."
The history of the Tlingit includes pre- and post-contact events and stories. Tradition-based history involved creation stories, the Raven Cycle and other tangentially-related events during the mythic age when spirits transformed back and forth from animal to human and back, the migration story of arrival at Tlingit lands, and individual clan histories. More recent tales describe events near the time of the first contact with Europeans. European and American historical records come into play at that point; although modern Tlingit have access to those historical records, however, they maintain their own record of ancestors and events important to them against the background of a changing world.
Castle Hill also known as the American Flag-Raising Site and now as the Baranof Castle State Historic Site, is a National Historic Landmark and state park in Sitka, Alaska. The hill, providing a commanding view over the city, is the historical site of Tlingit and Russian forts, and the location where Russian Alaska was formally handed over to the United States in 1867. It is also where the 49-star United States flag was first flown after Alaska became a state in 1959.
Evstratii Ivanovich Delarov was a Greek mariner who served with several Russian maritime fur trade companies in Russian America. He was born in Ottoman Macedonia. He was the first documented Greek explorer and merchant to arrive in Alaska. He is considered to be the first de facto Governor of Alaska.
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.
Lydia T. Black was an American anthropologist. She won an American Book Award for Russians in Tlingit America: The Battles of Sitka, 1802 And 1804. She also received a Historian of the Year award from the Alaska Historical Society.
Baranof Island is an island in the northern Alexander Archipelago in the Alaska Panhandle, in Alaska. The name "Baranof" was given to the island in 1805 by Imperial Russian Navy captain U. F. Lisianski in honor of 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. The indigenous group native to the island, the Tlingit, named the island Shee Atika. Baranof island is home to a diverse ecosystem, which made it a prime location for the fur trading company, the Russian American Company. Russian occupation in Baranof Island impacted not only the indigenous population as well as the ecology of the island, but also led to the United States' current ownership over the land.
Demid Ilyich Kulikalov was an administrator of Russian America during the first decade of the 19th century. He served in the Russian-American Company for several decades, led early expeditions into what is now Alaska, administered RAC interests in the Pribilof Islands, and headed the Russian-American Company's Atka station.
Matilda Kinnon "Tillie"' Paul Tamaree was a Tlingit translator, civil rights advocate, educator, and Presbyterian church elder.
Edward DeGroff was a Sitka merchant and a noted photographer who contributed to the historical record of Sitka, Alaska in the late 19th century. Born in Staten Island, he arrived in the coastal town of Sitka, Alaska in 1880.
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