Alaska Cruises to Sitka

Sitka (city), coextensive with Sitka borough, southeastern Alaska, on the Pacific Ocean; incorporated 1920. Sitka was the most extensive city in the United States in 1990 with a land area of about 7461 sq km (about 2882 sq mi); it includes Baranof, south Chichagof, and many smaller islands. Population, however, is centered on the community of Sitka, a port on the western shore of Baranof Island. Sitka has an economy based on lumbering, pulp processing, fishing, and tourism. A U.S. Coast Guard air station, Sheldon Jackson College (1878), and the Sitka branch of the University of Alaska, Southeast (1962) are here.

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As the political and commercial heart of Russian America (1804-67), Sitka has many historic sites, including Castle Hill, scene of the official transfer of Alaska to the U.S., and the Russian Bishop's House (1842) and Saint Michael's Cathedral (1844, destroyed by fire 1966, now rebuilt). A Russian fort was established on this site in 1799 by the trader and first Russian governor of Alaska Aleksandr Baranov; it was destroyed by the Tlingit in 1802. A second Russian expedition in 1804 defeated the Native Americans (the battlefield is included in Sitka National Historical Park) and founded the community, which became known as New Archangel and later Sitka, the Tlingit name for Baranof Island. Sitka was capital of the Alaska Territory from 1884 until 1900.

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