28 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



was possessed of unusual physical endurance and muscular strength. 

 He was absolutely fearless ; he never allowed any obstacle, no mat- 

 ter how serious, which the elements or savage men were perpetually 

 raising, to check his advances. He loved to travel and explore, and 

 possessed rare executive or governing power over his rude and 

 boisterous followers. He soon realized that the establishment of 

 the headquarters of the company at St. Paul, Kadiak Island, was 

 disadvantageous, and quickly resolved to settle himself perma- 

 nently in the Bay of Sitka, or Norfolk Sound, where he could com- 

 municate with the vessels of other nations and purchase supplies of 

 them. Late in the autumn of 1799 he sailed to this port in the 

 brig Catherine, accompanied by a large fleet of Aleutian and Ka- 

 diak sea-otter hunters with their bidarkas, or skin-canoes. So 

 abundant were sea-otters then, now so rare, that, with the assist- 

 ance of these native hunters, he secured over fifteen hundred prime 

 otter-skins in less than a month ; then satisfied with the trading re- 

 sources of the locality, Baranov began the construction of a stock- 

 aded post, the site selected for which was on the main island, about 

 six miles to the northward of the Sitkan town-site of to-day. During 

 the winter of 1799-1800 he and his whole force were busily engaged 

 in the erection of substantial log houses and the surrounding 

 stockade at this location. In the spring, two American fur-trading 

 vessels made their appearance here, and the owners began to carry 

 on a brisk traffic with the native Sitkans, right under the eyes of 

 Baranov. Knowing that this must be stopped, the energetic Rus- 

 sian hastened back to Kadiak and set the machinery in motion to 

 that end. But his absence in the meantime from Sitka was im- 

 proved upon by the Koloshians, who, acting in preconcerted plan, 

 utterly destroyed the post. These savages on a certain day, when 

 most of the garrison was far outside of the stockade, hunting and 

 fishing, rushed in, several thousand of them, upon a few armed 

 men, surrounded the block-house, assailed it from all sides at once, 

 and soon forced an entrance. They massacred the defenders to a 

 man, including the commander, Medvaidniekov, and carried off more 

 than three thousand sea-otter pelts from the warehouses. 



During this wild and bloody fight an English ship was lying at 

 anchor far down the harbor, some ten miles from the scene ; three 

 Russians and five Aleutes only, out of the hunting parties absent at the 

 time of the attack, managed to secrete themselves in the woods, and 

 hide until they could gain the decks and protection of this vessel, 



