Sitka: Russian Alaska's Capital, Facing the Pacific

Ships anchor in Sitka Sound and tender passengers to the downtown harbor area — Crescent Boat Harbor or the Western Channel float, depending on ship size. Tender time is 5–10 minutes each way. From the landing, Lincoln Street runs east toward the Sitka National Historical Park (1.5 miles, a 30-minute walk through a trail along the Indian River) and west toward Castle Hill, where the Alaska purchase ceremony was held in October 1867. The Cathedral of St. Michael stands at the center of Lincoln Street in the original footprint of the 1848 structure; it is open for guided visits during ship calls for a small donation. The Sitka National Historical Park's totem collection (18 poles, set in old-growth forest along the river trail) is the largest in-situ collection in Alaska. A raptor center near the park entrance has bald eagles and other raptors in rehabilitation.

Sitka is walkable in its historic core. Taxis from the harbor to the Alaska Raptor Center ($5, 10 min) — the rehabilitation center keeps permanently injured eagles, owls, and ravens on public display. The Fortress of the Bears (grizzly bear rescue sanctuary, 8 km south, $15 admission) is the best wildlife viewing near town: 6–8 grizzly bears in a natural enclosure, observable from viewing walkways. Whale-watching from Sitka Sound is possible if the schedule permits — humpback and orca sightings are reliable in summer.

USD. Standard 18–20% at restaurants. Raptor Center and wildlife guides: $5–10 appreciated. Boat whale-watching guides: $10–15 per person.

St. Michael's Cathedral's interior is a functioning Russian Orthodox church with icons and liturgical objects spanning the American colonial period, some brought from Russia in the 19th century. The Raptor Center's flight demonstrations, when scheduled, involve free-flight by permanently injured eagles in an amphitheater — a more intimate experience than wildlife watching from a boat. The Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall on Katlian Street is the oldest Indigenous civil-rights organization in Alaska, founded in Sitka in 1912.

Sitka was the capital of Russian America from 1808 until the Alaska Purchase in 1867. The transfer ceremony on Castle Hill — where the Russian flag came down and the American flag went up — marked the largest land transaction in US history at the time ($7.2 million for 586,000 square miles). Sitka National Historical Park (no admission fee) preserves the site of the 1804 Battle of Sitka — the last major armed resistance of the Tlingit people against Russian expansion. The park's 18 standing totem poles are a significant collection of coastal Tlingit and Haida carving. The Sheldon Jackson Museum (University of Alaska Southeast, $8) has the most comprehensive collection of Alaska Native art and artifacts in the state outside of the Smithsonian.