California's Russian Outpost

California's Russian Outpost

Russian fur traders and their native Alaskan hunters left northern California more than 160 years ago, but vestiges of Tsarist Russia’s attempt to colonize North America remain along the Pacific coast.

The name given to the Russian River that flows through Sonoma County is the most obvious example of Russia’s 19th-century expansion, and 11 miles north of the hamlet of Jenner is Fort Ross, named after the word for Russia (Rossiia).

Flanked by a spectacular ocean view and a forested ridge, the fort was built in 1812 and its stockade and all but one of its structures (the 1836 Rotchev House) have been authentically reconstructed.

“I have one of the most awesome commutes to work,” says Park Ranger Bill Walton, who has worked at Fort Ross State Historic Park for 20 years. “I can see sometimes 54 miles ... to the Farallon Islands. That always connects me back to the Russians, [who] had outposts on the Farallons.”

In 1811, employees of the Russian-American Co. landed at nearby Bodega Bay to establish a permanent settlement. A little too close to Spanish San Francisco for comfort, Bodega Bay was deserted a year later in favor of another spot a few miles north.

After building Fort Ross—complete with two “blockhouses” (lookout points), barracks for visiting officials, a fur warehouse, a Russian Orthodox chapel, and a graveyard—the Russians began a California stay of nearly 30 years. The settlement grew to a couple hundred Russians and Aleuts who hunted sea otter fur, grew fruits and grains on outlying ranches for Russia’s Alaskan settlements, raised livestock, and traded peacefully with the native Kashaya people and the Spanish. But in 1841, the unprofitable fort was sold to land baron John Sutter, and the colonists left their California dreams behind.

Fort Ross is now a 3,157-acre park where Russians make pilgrimages to see the heart of their onetime colony, and Russian-Americans travel from San Francisco on Independence Day and Memorial Day to worship in the fort’s chapel and pay their respects to colonists buried in the adjacent cemetery.

The Russian River was called Slavianka by the Russians—meaning little Slavic girl—and a local ecology group has taken its name from the Russian word.

One of the current projects of the Stewards of Slavianka is improving the quality of nearby Willow Creek—so that salmon will return to it—once was the site of a Russian ranch.

The Stewards of Slavianka operate three visitor centers, including one in 100-home Jenner, where the Russian River pours into the Pacific Ocean. Members of the group also keep an eye on the local marine mammal populations—but not the same way the Russian colonists did. “Sea otters were the black gold, the engine that drove the Russian-American Company down here,” Walton explains.

Sonoma County also is home to one of the state’s largest wine industries. In fact, Russians planted the first grapevines in the area.

The Russian colonists led the way in other arenas, too—namely, peaceful coexistence. The fort was never attacked, and trade flourished between the Russians and their neighbors.

Elisabeth Deffner is a freelance writer in Orange, Calif.

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