Total population is around 9,000.
Access is by air or sea only.
Alexander Baranof, chief manager of the Russian-American Company headquartered in Kodiak, built a trading post and fort north of Sitka in 1799. Russian fur traders hunted the valuable sea otters found in the waters surrounding Sitka. Baranof returned in 1804, and by 1808 Sitka was the capital of Russian Alaska. Sitka served as the Territorial Capital of Alaska from then until 1906. Salmon was the mainstay of the economy from the late 1800s until the 1950s, when the numbers of salmon decreased.