Sitka: The Unofficial Walking Tour
Since Russians first discovered the incredible value of sea otter pelts in 1741, Alaska has been swept by a series of resource-based booms, whether in furs, fish, gold, or oil. In contrast, Sitka has enjoyed booms, but has never owed them its existence. Sitka has been home to human culture possibly since the end of the Ice Age around 10,000 years ago. Incredibly, much of the historical landscape remains unchanged.
1. Sitka National Historical Park. Walk down to the trailhead between the beach and the park Visitor Center. The porch is a great place to set up your scope in the winter to watch waterfowl. The building itself was designed to suggest a traditional Northwest Coast Indian longhouse. Return another day to take in the museum, movie, and ranger talk.
2. Head down the trail, past all the totem poles, to the meadow called the "Fort Site." (The totem poles are mostly replicas carved by the Civilian Conservation Corps during WWII. Their display along this trail is impressive, but slightly out of character.) At the Fort Site in 1804 the Sitka Tlingit made their stand against the Russian frigate Neva. The Tlingit had a highly refined understanding of warfare and chose this site with care. At low tide, the beach extends out nearly a half-mile, a much less lethal range for a ship's cannon. The Tlingit had cleared the beach front of trees, and had an open field of fire (with their Yankee firearms). Forced to assault up the beach, the Russians were soundly repulsed. The Tlingit won the battle of Sitka; they lost the ensuing, week-long siege. Extended siege craft was a European tactic unfamiliar to the Tlingit. The Russian-American Company burned Sitka and built New Archangel on the ashes. Trading mainly in sea otter pelts, over the next 63 years the Russian-American Company would rise and fall as the world's most profitable fur enterprise.
3. As you read the interpretive sign at the Fort Site, look in the brush behind you and to the right. The circular mound of earth is a WWII machine gun emplacement built by some of the 20,000 American troops stationed here during that war.
4. Circle back to the Visitor Center along the Indian River. (Be sure to stand on the footbridge in late July and August to look at spawning salmon. There is great birdwatching year-round on the river.) The totem pole nearest the flag pole on the front lawn was raised in 1976. The "Bicentennial Pole" is one of the few totem poles that communicates a message to non-Tlingit cultures.
5. Walk back along Lincoln Street to Sheldon Jackson College's Stratton Library. Under a tree just before the library is a rusting piece of machinery. This winch (aka "donkey") was likely installed in a sawmill/boat building shop that stood across the street. Before WWII some terrific boats were built here out of local spruce and yellow cedar, some of which are still afloat. Once quite self-sufficient in this regard, Sitka now imports most of its construction lumber from Washington and Oregon. Almost all of Alaska's commercial timber is harvested for pulp, and what little is milled into lumber is shipped to non-US markets. Go figure.
6. Turn right past Stratton Library and visit the Sheldon Jackson Museum. Owned and operated by the Alaska State Museum, the SJ Museum has the best ethnographic collection in Alaska, and it's one of the finest small museums anywhere. Even the building is an artifact: Alaska's first concrete structure (1895), and a product of the Victorian Era's dubious flirtation with the octagon.
7. Cut diagonally across the campus of Sheldon Jackson College toward the tennis courts down on Lincoln Street. This lovely half-quadrangle of buildings is relatively unique in Alaska, and distinctive by any standards. It was designed in 1910 and whimsically combines style elements of Tudor Gothic, Bungalow Craftsman, and Adirondack Lodge. Due to financial pressure, the college feels compelled to tear down the centermost building, Allen Memorial. Architectural activists are working to delay the work until the college snaps to its senses.
8. Within a hundred foot radius of the tennis courts are some ancient, pre-Tlingit rock carvings known as "petroglyphs." Most people in Sitka do not even know they are there. You can find them without much trouble. This area is the flood plain of the Indian River, which may have flowed through here when these carvings were made. Perhaps the prominent placement of petroglyphs marked the river as a territory of the carvers.
9. Continue down Lincoln Street until you arrive at St. Peter's Episcopal Church. Many "official" tours claim that Alaska's first Episcopal Bishop, Peter Trimble Rowe, built this beautiful little church himself in 1899. Wrong! The indefatigable Bishop Rowe built the huge See House behind the church. The house is Provincial Shingle style, and has been called "one of the grandest houses in Sitka" by historical architect A. K. Hoagland in The Buildings of Alaska.
10. Another two blocks down Lincoln Street is the impossible-to-miss yellow ocher Russian Bishop's House. The House is one of only four surviving buildings from the Russian colonial era, and the only one restored to its original appearance (by the Park Service). The building deserves a thorough visit another day. Today, walk in to the first floor museum and find the "Possession Plaque" in the first display cabinet. One of several buried by Russia on Alaska's coast, this plaque (and the others like it) formally marked Russia's claim. This is the only plaque ever found; it is the single most valuable artifact of Russian-Alaska. Searches have been mounted to locate others, but to no avail.
11. Cross Lincoln Street and walk through the Crescent Harbor parking lot to the statue of Alexander Baranof. In this vicinity is an unusual species of tree called a metasequoia, or dawn redwood. A deciduous conifer, this tree sheds its needles in the fall. The seedling was one of two brought to Sitka from Asia about forty years ago.
12. Stroll over to the Tlingit canoe. This is a nice piece of work except for one thing: the hull should only be about three-quarters of an inch thick or less. A proper dugout would have long since warped and cracked. The Tlingit typically built fast and seaworthy craft. This model was never intended to leave the showroom.
13. Cross the Street to the Wells Fargo Bank, turn left on Lincoln Street, and walk down the block until you see the plaque identifying "Building 29." You've just seen your second Russian colonial building. Like the Russian Bishop's House, No. 29 is built from solid, hewn logs.
14. (The unofficial walking tour recommends that whatever your religious beliefs you attend a church service some Sunday at St. Michael's Cathedral, rather than simply touring the building, which is a replica. The Russian Orthodox Liturgy is 100% authentic; religion is the most enduring legacy of the Russian occupation.)
15. Proceed down Lincoln Street toward the gas station. Take a left at City Hall and climb the steps to Castle Hill . There's not much left of this important site but the view (the best in town). Large structures from both the Tlingit and Russian cultures have been here, but the state has no plans other than to maintain the hill much as it is. Look back toward town and find the Russian Blockhouse overlooking the water on Katlian Street. Head there for your final stop.
16. The Russian Blockhouse is opened sporadically by the Park Service. It's a fun but somewhat flawed replica (the chainsaw scars are a dead giveaway that 19th century Russians were not involved). The structure does stand on the site of an original blockhouse, however, which was incorporated into a stockade wall surrounding the landward side of Sitka. Until their departure in 1867, the Russians feared most the very Tlingit whom they had dislocated in 1804. 
In about 1820, the Russians decided the Tlingit could rebuild their village in Sitka just outside the stockade wall below this blockhouse. The Tlingit built their long clan houses in a row along the beach, and used the upper part of the hill as a cemetery. Although the stockade has long fallen, the blockhouse still marks a clear social boundary in Sitka: on one side is a quiet Tlingit residential area bordering a cemetery, and on the other is town's active commercial district.