At the Ozerskoe Redoubt, on Deep Lake, were barracks and a fort, a flouring mill, a tannery, and other buildings. A zapor, or fish trap, in the stream took sixty thousand fish each year.
The Bakery and Shops of the Russians–Later the Sitka Trading Co.’s Building.
The workmen got out timber from the forest for the building of ships, they cut fuel and burned charcoal in large quantities; kept the buildings in repair and did other duties required on the factory. The work of the gardening was chiefly done by the Aleuts, who were paid a ruble a day for their services.
The Russian Captain Lutke came to Sitka about this time and he tells us that there were many pigs and chickens raised by the inhabitants, and that a pig might be had for 5 to 7 rubles, a hen for 4 to 5 rubles, and eggs at from 3-1/2 to 10 rubles per dozen. The chief drawback to the chicken industry was the presence of the great black ravens that carried away the young chicks and sometimes even the old hens. The ravens were such successful scavengers that they were called the New Archangel police, and he says they even bit the tails off the young pigs, so that all the hogs of the place were tailless.
He mentions the abundance of deer on the islands and also says that mountain sheep were killed by the Aleuts and brought to the fort. He must have confused the sheep with the goats, for the sheep never approach the coast so closely, and he speaks of the wool being used for weaving the blankets for the ceremonial dances of the Kolosh. This would indicate that the animal in question was the mountain goat. A later writer says that 2,700 game animals were brought into Sitka for sale during the winter of 1861-62.
A shipyard was established as soon as the necessary buildings to house the garrison were completed. It occupied a part of the present parade ground near the Russian Barracks and included a portion of the present street. Many vessels were built in the yard during the Russian occupation, the first, being the tender “Avoss,” launched in 1806, followed by the brig “Sitka,” built by an American shipbuilder named Lincoln, and for which he was paid 2,000 rubles as a royalty upon the completion of the ship. A frigate of 320 tons was the largest vessel built before 1819, and at that time construction was discontinued until 1834, when work was resumed and continued until the close of the Russian regime.
The “Politofsky” was one of the last vessels to be built at Sitka, and it was sold by Prince Maksoutoff to H. M. Hutchinson and Abraham Hirsch for $4,000 in 1867. The next year it was sold to Hutchinson, Kohl & Co., and later was sold to a firm that ran it to Puget Sound, and from Alaska to San Francisco. It was built of Alaska cedar timber, the dushnoi dereva or scented wood of the Russians, and was spiked with hand-made copper spikes. It was taken to Alaska in the gold rush of 1898, and found its last resting place, very appropriately, in the land where it was built, in the harbor of St. Michael, the old Russian port on Bering Sea.
The fear of shipwreck, and of death at sea hung over every soul of the community. The long voyages in uncharted and unlighted waters with sailing ships–more than six months at the shortest from Kronstadt–often three months or more against baffling winds from Okhotsk–the voyages to the redoubts and odinoshkas (detached posts with one man only) of the Bering Sea and of the Gulf of Alaska, to collect the fur catch of the year and bring it to Sitka; the long journey via Canton on the return to Russia–all held many dangers for the sailing ships of those days. The “Phoenix,” the first ship built on the Alaskan shores, foundered with all on board, including the Bishop and his retinue, in 1799, on the return voyage from Okhotsk; the “St. Nicholas” went ashore on the coast of Washington in 1808, and those who survived the waves were held in bondage for years by the savages of that coast.