Russian & Tlingit History
The capital of Russian America and a Tlingit homeland: an onion-domed cathedral, the hill where Alaska changed flags in 1867, the 1804 battle site in a totem forest and a civil-rights hall on pilings.
St. Michael's Cathedral
The onion-domed Orthodox cathedral in the middle of Lincoln Street, rebuilt after a 1966 fire with the icons that parishioners carried out of the flames.
Castle Hill (Baranof Castle State Historic Site)
Small hilltop park above the harbor where Russia handed Alaska to the United States in 1867; earlier a Kiks.ádi Tlingit fort site.
Russian Bishop's House
One of the few Russian colonial buildings left in North America, built for the first Orthodox bishop of Alaska and restored by the Park Service.
Sitka Pioneer Home and Prospector Statue
State home for older Alaskans facing Totem Square, with a bronze prospector on the lawn.
Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall
Wooden hall on pilings over the water on Katlian Street, built in 1914 by Sitka Camp No. 1 of the Alaska Native Brotherhood.
Sitka National Historical Park and Totem Trail
Alaska's oldest federally designated cultural and historic park, where a mile-long forest trail passes carved poles on the way to the site of the 1804 Tlingit fort near the Indian River.
Old Sitka State Historical Park
Wooded shoreline park near the ferry terminal marking Redoubt St. Michael, the Russian post destroyed by the Tlingit in 1802.
Walking map: the shuttle stop and downtown Sitka
The free shuttle from the cruise terminal stops at Harrigan Centennial Hall on Harbor Drive, and tenders land at Crescent Harbor beside it. St. Michael's Cathedral and Castle Hill are a few minutes west along Lincoln Street, the Russian Bishop's House is a few minutes east, and the totem trail in Sitka National Historical Park is about 15 to 20 minutes on foot at the east end of the street.
Map: USGS elevation; streets and buildings © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Featured history articles
The best reading online about Sitka's past, from the Park Service, the state museums, the Orthodox Church, public radio and encyclopedia entries. Each opens on the original site.
Sitka, Alaska
Sheet'ká, the Tlingit name, shortens a phrase meaning people on the edge of Shee, their name for Baranof Island. As New Archangel it became the informal capital of Russian America in 1808, and it stayed the American seat of government until the capital moved to Juneau in 1906. By total area it is the largest city in the United States.
Read on en.wikipedia.org ↗Old Sitka and the 1802 attack
The Russian-American Company under Alexander Baranov put up log buildings inside a palisade north of today's town in 1799, naming the post for the Archangel Michael. Tlingit fighters destroyed it in 1802. The site is a National Historic Landmark within Old Sitka State Historical Park.
Read on en.wikipedia.org ↗The 1804 Battle of Sitka
In 1804 Russian fur hunters and their Aleut allies came back to the area and fought the Tlingit, who had built Shis'kí Noow, the Sapling Fort, near the mouth of the Indian River. The fort site is the heart of Sitka National Historical Park, Alaska's oldest federally designated cultural and historic park.
Read on en.wikipedia.org ↗Castle Hill and the 1867 transfer
On October 18, 1867, the Russian flag came down and the American flag went up on the hill where the Russian governors lived, completing the sale of Alaska. Alaska Day is still celebrated in Sitka every October 18.
Read on en.wikipedia.org ↗Russian Bishop's House
Finnish laborers brought in by the Russian-American Company built this house in 1841-43 for Ivan Veniaminov, the first Bishop of Alaska, later canonized as St. Innocent. Its upper floor held a chapel and the bishop's rooms; the ground floor was later a print shop and an inn. The Park Service acquired it in 1973.
Read on en.wikipedia.org ↗St. Michael's Cathedral fire, 1966
The cathedral finished in 1848 burned on January 2, 1966. More than 95 percent of its icons were carried out and saved, and the church was rebuilt on the same spot.
Read on oca.org ↗Sheldon Jackson Museum
The Rev. Dr. Sheldon Jackson gathered many of the Alaska Native objects in this collection and pushed for a building to hold them. Work began in 1895; the state describes it as Alaska's first concrete building and its oldest museum.
Read on museums.alaska.gov ↗Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall
Tlingit men founded the Alaska Native Brotherhood in Sitka in 1912 to fight being shut out of restaurants and theaters, and the group went on to win citizenship for Alaska Natives. Its hall on Katlian Street, built over the water in 1914, became a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
Read on en.wikipedia.org ↗The Pioneer Home and the Prospector
The Pioneer Home opened in September 1913 and is the oldest of Alaska's six state homes. Its bronze Prospector, by Alonzo Victor Lewis, took 21 years of fundraising and was dedicated at the 1949 Alaska Day celebration.
Read on en.wikipedia.org ↗O'Connell Bridge
Opened in 1972 between downtown and Japonski Island, where the airport is, the 1,255-foot O'Connell Bridge was the first cable-stayed vehicle bridge in the United States. It is named for Mayor John W. O'Connell and became an ASCE civil engineering landmark in 2022.
Read on en.wikipedia.org ↗The Sitka pulp mill
The Alaska Pulp Corporation ran a pulp mill on Sawmill Cove, about five miles east of town, from 1959 to 1993, with more than 450 local workers at its peak. The city took over the land in 1999 as the Gary Paxton Industrial Park, and two of the mill's clarifier tanks now house Fortress of the Bear.
Read on en.wikipedia.org ↗Sitka's private cruise dock
Chris McGraw built a deep-water dock north of town on the former Old Sitka Dock site in 2011. Once big ships could tie up instead of anchoring, passenger numbers climbed sharply from 2022.
Read on kcaw.org ↗Sheet'ká Kwáan Naa Kahídi
Owned by the Sitka Tribe of Alaska and built in 1997, the community house holds the largest hand-carved house screen in Southeast Alaska. Each summer the Naa Kahídi Dancers perform Tlingit songs and stories there.
Read on en.wikipedia.org ↗Summaries are ours. Each article opens on the original site.
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