Sitka’s Totem Trail

Tlingit treasures in Alaska’s Little Russia

Story and Photo By David Noyes

There was a soft mist in the air as we shuttled across Crescent Bay to our last port of call in the Alexander Archipelago. As we approached the visitor’s dock under the O’Connell Bridge, the spire of Saint Michael’s Cathedral rose above the small skyline and hinted at the complex history of this charming sea-side community.

Nestled on the west coast of Baranof Island between the rugged mountains of the Tongass National Forest and the Pacific Ocean, Sitka is the ancestral home of the Kiksadi Tlingit clan who called their settlement Shee. It may sound like a Russian name, but in fact Sitka is an Anglicized contraction of the Tlingit words Shee’ and Atika, meaning “people on the outside of Shee.” The Tlingits lived undisturbed on their island until 1799, when Russian trader Alexander Baranof established a fur-trading outpost just a few miles north of the present-day city.

In 1802, the Tlingit drove the unwelcome foreigners off their Island only to be overwhelmed two years later by the returning Russians, armed with guns and canons. Soon, Baranof’s Russian-American Company became the most profitable fur-trader in the world, and Sitka became the capital of Russian America. But, as the sea otter population declined from overhunting by the middle of the nineteenth century, the Russians lost interest in their remote colony and ceded the Alaska territory to the United States in a small ceremony in downtown Sitka on October 18, 1867.

Just a short distance from downtown, the 107-arce Sitka National Historical Park was established in 1910 to commemorate the historic 1804 Battle of Sitka and is now home to one of the world’s largest collections of totem poles. The beautiful one-mile loop of the coastal trail winds through a lush spruce and hemlock rainforest past magnificent totem poles to the site of the Tlingit fort and battlefield.

While many of the poles that line the wooded trails are contemporary carvings by local Native artists or replicas of the originals (placed here in 1906 following their display at the 1904 World’s Fair), the striking designs continue to share the stories and record the history of the people who carved them. Popular guided ranger walks are offered on various topics in summer months, and visitors to the park’s cultural center can view several of the original poles at Totem Hall. Explore Sitka’s rich and colorful history before heading back to the eclectic mix of shops, galleries, and restaurants that make this one of Alaska’s most anticipated ports of call.