The first Russian settlement of the inlet was by the establishment of a fort by Shelikoff, near the entrance, named Alexandrovsk. It was followed in 1786 by the establishment of the Lebedef-Lastuchkin Company on the Kussilof River in a settlement and fort named St. George.
Fort Alexandrovsk formed a square with two bastions, and the imperial arms shone over the entrance, which was protected by two guns. The situation, however, was not so advantageous for trading as that of the other company.
In 1791 the Lebedef Company established another fort, the Redoubt St. Nicholas, still farther up the inlet, just below that narrowing known as the "Forelands," at the Kaknu, or Kenai, River. At this place the shores jut out into three steep, cliffy points which were named by Vancouver West, North, and East Forelands.
Here Vancouver found the flood-tide running with such a violent velocity that the best bower cable proved unable to resist it, and broke. The buoy sank by the strength of the current, and both the anchor and the cable were irrecoverably lost.
Cook did not enter Turnagain Arm, but Vancouver learned from the Russians that neither the arm nor the inlet was a river; that the arm terminated some thirty miles from its mouth; and that from its head the Russians walked about fifteen versts over a mountain and entered an inlet of Prince William Sound,—thereby keeping themselves in communication with their fellow-countrymen at Port Etches and Kaye Island.
Vancouver sent Lieutenant Whidbey and some men to explore the arm; but having entered with the bore and finding no place where he might escape its ebb, he was compelled to return with it, without making as complete an examination as was desired.
The country bordering upon the bays along Turnagain Arm is low, richly wooded, and pleasant, rising with a gradual slope, until the inner point of entrance is reached. Here the shores suddenly rise to bold and towering eminences, perpendicular cliffs, and mountains which to poor Whidbey, as usual, appeared "stupendous"—cleft by "awfully grand" chasms and gullies, down which rushed immense torrents of water.
The tide rises thirty feet with a roaring rush that is really terrifying to hear and see.
At a Russian settlement Whidbey found one large house, fifty by twenty-four feet, occupied by nineteen Russians. One door afforded the only ventilation, and it was usually closed.
Whidbey and his men were hospitably received and were offered a repast of dried fish and native cranberries; but because of the offensive odor of the house, owing to the lack of ventilation and other unmentionable horrors, they were unable to eat. Perceiving this, their host ordered the cranberries taken away and beaten up with train-oil, when they were again placed before the visitors. This last effort of hospitality proved too much for the politeness of the Englishmen, and they rushed out into the cool air for relief.