Alaska and me
LINDSAY SUTTON checks out America’s bargain buy from Russia
IT’S perhaps the one place in America where Russia is held in great affection.
The tradition goes back more than 200 years – and it began long before the ‘Ruskies, sold the place to the ‘Yankees’ for a knock-down price.
It was 150 years ago that the Russian Tsar sold Alaska to the USA for $7.2 million.
That amounted to just two cents an acre for land that can now sell for up to $100,000 an acre in Alaska’s capital city of Juneau.
Whatever comparison you use, it was a bargain buy.
All the more so when you consider that gold and ‘black gold’ – that’s oil in modern-day parlance – was found after the cash-strapped Russians decided to quit Alaska back in 1867.
However, the one-time colonisers and traders left a fascinating legacy on Alaskan soil. Today, it’s still there for the modern-day visitor to see and to savour. And nowhere more so than in the old Russian capital of Sitka on the coast of south-west Alaska.
The onion domes on the old Russian Orthodox churches are an absolute giveaway. The distinctive Russian cross is there, too, standing out on top of St Michael’s Cathedral in the heart of old Sitka, and on the site of graves in the old Russian Cemetery on the edge of town.
Up the Pacific Coast in Juneau – nestling among the steep, residential, hillside streets – is the equally impressive St Nicholas Church, the oldest of its denomination in Alaska. What is more remarkable is that both churches still have active Orthodox congregations and services each week, all these years on since the fur traders upped sticks and went back to Mother Russia.
Sitka is at the centre of it all, and it’s a charming place to visit during the cruise ship season from May to September, away from the harsher climes of winter. My wife and I travelled with Holland America Line, who know their business, since they’ve been running it since 1873, and offering Alaskan cruises from the American port of Seattle and Canada’s Vancouver for the last 70 years.
The whole experience was a joy – a floating hotel with all facilities on board and fascinating ports of call. There are active glaciers, dormant volcanoes, whales and winged wildlife to write home about, and the historical interest of places that witnessed British exploration, Russian dominance, then American statehood, with gold rushes and fishing feats.
That’s not to mention the amazing history of the Pacific Coast’s Native Americans, who survived the exploitation of their land to rise again and become today’s proud First Nation flag carriers.
In Sitka, that legacy endured, with the native Tlingit tribe mixing and living alongside the original Russian community, albeit after a decidedly acrimonious beginning back in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The Russians came to take as many furs as they could, initially using the Tlingit as gatherers before setting up a fort in Sitka, pushing out the native Americans who had lived in this bountiful land in relative harmony for 13,000 years. A Tlingit attack in 1802 saw off the Russians, but they returned with a vengeance and defeated the natives in 1804, deciding to build a fort, the remains of which can still be visited today.
Eventually, the Tlingit were invited back, to help supply the invaluable fur of the sea otter, much prized for its warmth and luxurious softness.
Step forward an unlikely peacemaker, the Russian Orthodox Bishop of Alaska, Ivan Veniaminov, later to be sanctified as St Innocent. This gentle man became the ‘People’s Priest,’ bringing the native population and the Russian congregation together as equals, while respecting the culture and traditions of the Tlingit.
No coercion, no subjugation, no division. Which explains why a good proportion of today’s 40-strong congregation is Tlingit. In contrast, the Presbyterian proselytisers who came to the area burned the Tlingit’s story-telling totem poles, ended the so-called savages’ ways, and forced their children into missionary schools – all in the name of God.
An easy, half-hour trail walk through the amazingly abundant temperate rain forest takes you to the old Russian fort site, which has a Tlingit totem pole erected there, following a reconciliation service attended by a descendant of the original Russian representative, Alexander Baranov, and offspring of the Tlingits who fought him two hundred years ago.
Old Sitka is now managed as an Alaskan State Historical Park, which also looks after the restored Russian Bishop’s House. The jewel in the crown is St Michael’s Cathedral, which houses the iconic displays of the authentic Russian Orthodox Church, all the more remarkable since it remains an active centre of worship.
The Russian-American Building, where Russian administrators lived, is still intact, too. During the San Francisco gold rush, traders from here sold ice, fish and lumber as far afield as California and even Hawaii.
Finally, you can visit the old castle remains, where the Russian flag was lowered in 1867, to be replaced by the American flag for that bargain sum.
At the time, critics called it ‘Seward’s Folly,’ after Secretary of State William Seward, who fixed up the deal. Not anymore.