copyright Sitka Maritime Heritage Society 2006
Sitka in 1860
Tlingit Canoes
The Native people of Sitka, the Tlingit, have a maritime culture, and used large red cedar canoes traded from the Haida for transporting large numbers of people and gear, for gatherings or to seasonal camps.
People used smaller spruce or cottonwood canoes for fishing, berry picking, seal hunting, and other daily uses. The canoes are hollowed from a single log, then steamed open and into final shape.
Salmon was the main food of the people. Every salmon stream had seasonal fish camps nearby.
18th Century:
Mt. Edgecumbe, the dormant volcano at the entrance to Sitka Sound, was named Mt. St. Lazarus by the Russian navigator Aleksei Chirikov in 1741. In 1775, Spanish explorer Don Juan de la Bodega y Quadra named it Mount St. Hyacinth or San Jacinto, because it was that saint’s day when he spotted it. In 1778 Captain James Cook, sailing for Britain, called it Mt. Edgecumbe, possibly after the mountain with that name overlooking Plymouth Harbor.
The Russian Era (1790s-1867)
Starting in 1743 Russian traders and hunters began moving east from Siberia, along the Aleutian Chain into Alaska, for sea mammal pelts. Sea otter in particular were worth a fortune in trade in China. They forced Aleutian and coastal Native people to hunt sea otter for them from two-hole baidarkas.
American and British ships were already coming into Sitka Sound and buying pelts from the Tlingit.
The Russian American Company formed in 1799 with rights to colonize America on behalf of the Tsar.
The first Russian fort at Old Sitka (7 miles north of present day downtown Sitka) was built in 1799, and destroyed by the Tlingit in 1802.
In 1804 Russian American Company chief Alexander Baranof returned, with hundreds of Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Native hunters, and met the armed Russian round-the-world ship Neva at Sitka. The main Tlingit fort was Noow Tlein, now called Castle Hill in downtown Sitka. The Tlingit were in a new fort, protected by the shallows of Indian River. The key to the battle may have been the loss of a Tlingit canoe of gunpowder in front of the old fort .The Tlingit retreated to Peril Strait, suffering great hardship.
In the early nineteenth century Sitka or New Archangel was the headquarters of the Russian American Company, and center of administration of the Russian colonies, which spread from northern Alaska to California. Sitka was not much to look at, with log buildings and mud streets, but it was nevertheless the most developed industrial outpost on the West Coast of North America. The boatyard here produced dozens of ships from ships the size of fishing boats today to ships over a hundred feet long. It was the only place for European and American ships to get repairs done, and some were even rebuilt right here. One of these was an American ship, retimbered in 1835, renamed the Lady Wrangell in honor of the chief administrator’s wife. The old shipyards were about where Totem Square is today. But, there was never enough men or materials.
The huge catches of sea otters ended shortly after they moved into Sitka in the early 1800s. By the 1830s the Russians were working on conservation.
Why they sold Alaska, in 1867, is still debated: they were losing money. Alaska was (and is!) expensive to supply, and they could not make their colony self-sufficient. Various enterprises like mining and ice had not panned out. The gold rush in California perhaps made them realize that in the case of a gold strike, they would not be able to hold the territory from an onslaught of Americans gold hunters. And, after their experience in the Crimean War, they knew that any navy would easily be able to take their vast territory by force, as they had almost no defenses.
After the Transfer to the U.S.
Army troops were quartered in Sitka, withdrawn in 1877. In 1879 the Navy was given jurisdiction over the Territory of Alaska. U.S. Revenue Service cutters and Navy gunboats were based in Sitka. These government vessels were the only law enforcement in Alaska.
Sitka went from a colonial center of civilization to a decaying log village; but, industry soon developed:
Tourism: Tourists rode on the steamers that carried mail, freight, and passengers.
For 6 years nearly a hundred sealing schooners operated in the North Pacific, and called frequently in Sitka. Three of them were based in Sitka.
When high-seas sealing was outlawed, Natives were granted an exception if they hunted in small boats, with spears. The Sitka Native boatbuilders developed the “Sitka sealer,” 20-24 foot open boat.
Salmon: the first cannery in Alaska was at Klawock in 1878. The same year one was built at Old Sitka, but it soon closed. Seining and later traps supplied fish for canning. Canneries in Peril Strait and at Sitkoh Bay (Chatham Cannery) employed Sitkans.
Next fish plant at Sitka 1913: Booth Fisheries cold storage. It became Sitka Cold Storage in 1930. Today the old Sheffield Hotel stands on the site. Pyramid Packing cannery 1918, still standing (Murray Pacific).
The struggle for Native citizenship and land claims began when people had their traditional fishing stream rights taken by canneries. Prominent leaders and the founders of the Alaska Native Brotherhood were Sitkans.
Early day seining done with a big rowboat. After 1915 they started using boats with gas engines, now often owned by a fisherman. Cannery-owned traps also used. Abolition of traps a key issue in the vote for statehood (1959).
Commercial trolling began in Southeastern Alaska in 1905 with rowboats. 1920s motorized trollers still mostly under 30 feet, and there were still some row boats. Troll fish in these years “mild-cured” – lightly salted and chilled, and shipped south under refrigeration for smoking as lox.
West Coast halibut schooners mostly from Puget Sound. First in Alaska were east coast boats, in 1888. Old style boats still in use: typically 70 to 80 feet long, with high bow, two masts, house aft. There are a couple of classic halibut schooners still in Sitka at New Thomsen Harbor, the Republic and the Pacific. Originally, the fishermen set out in dories to fish, setting their ground line with buoys and anchors at each end, and pulling it up with the fish. Gear is now worked from the main boat. Sitka longliners are sturdy boats mostly glass or steel, with bait shelter on the stern, and hydraulic power block for hauling in the longline. Halibut, black cod very valuable.
1994 IFQ (Individual Fishing Quota) system limited fisheries for halibut and black cod to those who fished in 1980s. Quota can be bought and sold. Solution to problem of crowded open access fishery and loss of gear and lives.
The Sitka Cold Storage (former Booth Fisheries) burned 1973. Halibut Producers Coop began Sitka plant November 1979. Petersburg Fisheries, in a joint venture with Bob Wyman, expanded his plant to become Sitka Sound Seafood. Both are cold storage plants. There are other buyers and processors as well.
Trollers
tied up in Sitka, mid 1920s. Japonski Island government coaling
buildings in background. Sitka Historical Society Photograph.
Boatbuilding in Sitka
The most prolific period of boatbuilding after the turn of the century, for fishing boats.
At least 104 documented vessels, at least 32 feet long, were built here 1900-1960. There were at least 8 shops at various times. Many seiners were built in the late teens.
Peter Simpson, a Tsimpshean man from Metlakatla and a graduate of Sheldon Jackson School, had a boatshop at the Cottages, near Sitka National Historical Park by 1907. Other shops on islands, Katlian Street. Builders mostly Native, a few European immigrants. Some more productive builders include Andrew Hope, Peter Kitka, and George and David Howard.
Fishermen built boats for themselves. Cash was short and time was relatively abundant.
The Sheldon Jackson School, which started as a mission school for Alaska Natives, later becoming a high school and now college, built 2 seiners and the mission boat Princeton Hall.
The Sitka Marine Railway was started in November of 1945 at what is currently Allen Marine on Jamestown Bay. They built six boats the first two years, but then did mostly repair.
During World War II, Sitka got a large Naval Air Station (for sea planes) and accompanying Army Harbor Defenses on Japonski and neighboring islands. The Navy and Army had hundreds of boats, from patrol boats, to launches, to barges and tugs for construction. The only marine ways was the small one still standing next to the bridge, which was inadequate for the size and number of boats needing repair, and for the number of shipwrights, as many as 26.
After the war shipwright Bob Modrell came to teach boatbuilding at the Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school Mt. Edgecumbe, where he and his students built a troller and built a deck house for the shore boat Arrowhead in one of the hangars. He then stayed on and repaired the shore boats in the old Navy boatshop. Shore boats ran between Sitka and Japonski Island before the bridge was built (1972).
Many salmon and longline boats are still classic wooden vessels built between 1910 and 1960. By and large these boats are extremely seaworthy, with deep, heavy, relatively narrow hulls. The main reason so many are still around is because so many were built, and built well, during the peak years of the fisheries.
Trolling: for fresh or frozen market. High quality, hook-and-line caught. Boats have tall poles to hold the lines out from the boat. Hit hard in the 1980s by Endangered Species Act restrictions on Snake River fish (nearly wiped out by dams) mingling with other salmon in Southeastern Alaska. Then decimated by salmon farming, which drove down prices and are available fresh, so more competitive. Perhaps now seeing a turn around as the public recognizes the environmental, economic and health benefits of wild salmon.
Seining: uses a net to encircle school of salmon. The fish is canned, also frozen. Decimated by low prices due to salmon farms. Wide stern, large power block high on a boom.
Longlining: hook and line fishery for halibut and black cod. Peaked in 1980s, after Magnusen Act (1979) excluded foreign boats from 200 mile limit, and as halibut stocks recovered from overfishing in 1960s.
Trawlers, draggers, factory processors: Alaska’s biggest fishery, for pollock and other ground fish for fish patties and other products. Not allowed in southeastern Alaska.
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