Baranof Island
, Also called Baranof Baranov Iceland Iceland or Sitka Iceland is an island in the Alexander Archipelago in the Alaska Panhandle in southeast Alaska. Of the native Tlingit it was (often simply " Shee " ) called Sheet' - ká X'áat'l. It belongs to the ABC islands of Alaska.
Geography
The island is more than 162 km long and 48 km wide. It is the most mountainous island in the Alexander Archipelago and reaches a height of 1643 Veniaminof peak meters above the sea. With an area of 4160 km ², it is the eighth largest island in Alaska and the tenth largest island of the United States; in the list of the biggest islands in the world it is ranked 135 The population of the island in 2000 was 8532 people.
Almost the entire surface of the island is part of the city and the boroughs of Sitka (Sitka stretches north on Chichagof from Iceland ). The only part of Baranof Iceland, which does not belong to Sitka, is a small strip of land (9.75 km ²) in the extreme southeast that is part of the Petersburg Census Area and includes the city of Port Alexander. This part had a population in 2000 of 81 people. The cities of Baranof Warm Springs, Port Armstrong and Walter Port located on the east side of the island. Goddard, an abandoned settlement 25 km south of Sitka, has some private houses and hot springs with two public bathhouses. There are three salmon - rearing stations, one just north of Port Alexander at Port Armstrong, another just north of Baranof Warm Springs at Hidden Falls, and the third south of Sitka near the Medvejie Lake.
Fishing, processing and tourism are major industries on the island, which is also famous for brown bears and Sitka black -tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus sitkensis ), a subspecies of mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus ).
History
The first European settlement on the island in 1799, founded by Alexander Baranov, the director and the first governor of the Russian-American Company, after whom the island and the archipelago are named. After the Battle of Sitka Baranof 1804 Iceland was the center of Russian activities in North America in the period to 1867 and the headquarters for the Russian fur trade interests.
Created around 1900, centered around Sitka and on the north side of the island to the Rodman Bay, canneries, whaling stations and fox farms. Most were abandoned at the beginning of World War II. The remnants of these outposts still exist, albeit in a dilapidated condition.