Fort Ross, California - Sitka Castle, Alaska - Fort Elisabeth, Kaua’i, Hawai’i

Fort Ross, California - Sitka Castle, Alaska - Fort Elisabeth, Kaua’i, Hawai’i. . In the early 19th century what is today the northwest coast of Washington State might have become a Russian colony, an extension of Alaska, if the Sv. Nikolai voyage had been successful. This could have led to this section of New Albion, the Anglo-Russian name for what became the Oregon Territory, becoming part of British-owned Canada later in the 19th century when the U.S.-Canadian boundaries were set in the 1846 Oregon Treaty between the U.S. and Great Britain. , John Quincy Adams served as the first U.S. ambassador to Russia from 1809-1814, becoming a friend of Czar Alexander I. Reports of the Sv. Nikolai incident sent to the Russian capital of St. Petersburg were one of the inciting factors that led to the issuing in 1823 of the Monroe Doctrine, authored by Adams while serving as Secretary of State under President James Monroe, proclaiming that the young nation of America would now intervene when European imperial powers attempted to colonize or meddle with nations in the Western hemisphere. , The Sv. Nikolai beaching kept the ship’s company from rendezvousing at Grays Harbor with its companion ship, the Kad’iak, commanded by Ivan Kuskov. Instead, Kuskov sailed south to the coast of Northern California, and then returned to the Russian American Company headquarters in Sitka. In 1812, under orders from Russian American Company Governor Baranov, Kuskov landed again in Northern California, establishing an agricultural and fur trading colony on the Pacific coast 15 miles north of Bodega Bay, upon a promontory today known as Fort Ross (Ross=Russian). , In 1815, a cargo of Russian American Company furs beached a Waimea, Kaua’i in the Hawaiian Islands. Baranov sent a Prussian physician, Gregor Schaffer, to Hawai’i to recover the furs. Schaffer attempted to establish a Russian colony in Hawai’i. Kamehameha, the ruler of Hawai’i, forced Schaffer off Kaua’i and away from the Hawaiian Islands after Schaffer encouraged Kaumuali’i, the king of Kaua’i, to oppose Kamehameha. Baranov sent Sv. Nikolai leader Timofei Tarakanov to Waimea. After being forced across the Kaua’i Channel to Honolulu Harbor aboard a leaking ship, Tarakanov led the Russian party to a safe return to Sitka while Schaffer fled Hawai’i abandoning them. , Today visitors can view Russian American Company 19th century forts and settlements spread across a wide swath of the North Pacific. Along with this monument along the Hoh River, historic Russian American Company sites are established at Sitka in Southeast Alaska, at Fort Ross north of San Francisco in California, and at Fort Elisabeth-Pa’ula’ula o Hipo at Waimea on the West Side, and Fort Alexander at Pua Poa Point at Princeville, both on the island of Kaua’i in Hawai’i.