In the three days of the International Conference on Russian America, attendees listened to and met some of the world’s leading scholars on the often overlooked Russian Colonial period in North America.
This conference was one of a series of events co-sponsored by Sitka National Historical Park, as part of its Centennial year. It was only made possible through the participation of the International Association of Specialists on Russian America, whose founders, along with the Park, hosted the first such conference in Sitka in 1979, and the Sitka Historical Society and Museum, whose staff made all resources available for this event, including hosting a number of the conference exhibits.
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Participants came from Russia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Canada and the United States. More photos.
The agenda offered ample opportunities to visit sites of great significance to the Russian era, remembering that for time immemorial this land has been home to the Tlingit. Russian America was also home to many other people—the Aleut, Alutiiq and Chugiach—as well as Finns, Germans, Swedes, Danes and many others, and the people of its far-flung outposts at Fort Ross in California, and in Hawaii as well.
The papers presented at this Conference represented a wide range of scholarship generally focused on the lifeways of the people of Russian America. Participants took advantage of this rare opportunity to listen, learn and contribute to our understanding of that long-ago time.