August 27, 2023 - NoCali Vacation
Fort Ross
I imagine the coast between the mouth of the Russian River north to Fort Ross must be very scenic.  We never saw it.  This morning we drove the very winding coastal Highway One on the side of a hill through some of the heaviest fog I've ever encountered.  I'll always wonder what the coast looks like.
   
We stopped at a scenic overlook.  Believe it or not, the fog has actually cleared somewhat.  You can see the beach down below.
   
Think.  Ah, if only it were that easy.  What if one is uninformed, lacking education or both?  What good does thinking do then?  Think about it.
   

It was only 20 miles from the motel to Fort Ross, but it probably took us an hour and a half to drive the winding roads through the fog.  I would learn on this trip that you should double your estimated travel times when driving Highway One in northern California.

The good news was that the fog had cleared up by the time we reached Fort Ross.
   
I have always known the Russians had a presence on the northern California coast but didn't know much about it.  Today I would learn quite a bit about it.  We would check out Fort Ross, a Russian outpost on the California coast.
   
We went into the visitors center and were asked if we wanted to go on a guided tour.  Sure!  Here is our tour guide who spent the next hour taking us through the fort and grounds, and telling us the amazing story of Fort Ross.
 
Fort Ross had tow windmills, the first in California.  One was behind our tour guide.  The other we will see later.
   

Approaching the Fort.

Fort Ross was a Russian-American Company (RAC) settlement between the years 1812 and 1841, on the edge of the Spanish frontier.  It was established as an agricultural colony tp support the company's 'settlements in Alaska, and as a base from which to hunt California's sea mammals.  In other words, it's purpose was purely to make money.  It was not to colonize the North American west coast for mother Russia.  As soon as they stopped making money, the Russians sold out and left.

Several families later used the land for ranching, timber production, and as a stage stop.

The fort has been partially restored to its appearance during the Russian occupation.

The Fort Ross State Historic Park was established in 1906.
   
The Kushkov House on the left with the Chapel on the right.  Ivan A. Kushkov was founder of the Fort Ross colony and the first of five administrators from 1812 to 1821.  Kushkov and all but the last administrator lived in this building.
   

The big storehouse and/or magazine building.

At far right is one of the two corner blockhouses.
   
The Rotchev House on the right and the Officials Quarters on the left.

Aleksander G. Rotchev was the last of five RAC administrators, from 1838 to 1841.
   
Heading into the Rotchev House.
   
 
   
Everything is made from redwood, which was, and is, plentiful in the area.
   
The administrator's workdesk.  Alexander Rotchev said the following of his time at Fort Ross:  "What an enchanting land California is!  ... the vegetation is in full bloom and everything is so fragrant.  The iridescent hummingbird flutters, vibrates and shimmers like a precious stone on the branch or over a flower.  The virgin soil of California yields marvelous fruits ... I spent the best years of my life there, and affectionately carry the memories of these days in my soul...."
   

Doesn't look like much but only the Administrator and his family lived this well.
   
China, piano:  not bad.
   
 
   
Bed's a little small.
   
This deer was chowing down on the apples outside the Rotchev House.
   
The next stop was the Storehouse which I found most interesting.  Pelts of every fur animal were hanging from the rafters.
   

Lynnette holding a Sea Otter pelt.  Unlike most other marine mammals, the sea otter has no blubber and relies on its exceptionally thick fur to keep warm.  With up to 150,000 strands of hair per square centimetre, its fur is the densest of any animal.  It was neat feeling the sea otter pelt.  Incredibly luxurious.  Our tour guide said they used to call sea otter fur "soft gold".  A single pelt could be sold in China for $100; an astronomical sum in those days.

Well before the 1849 California Gold Rush, American, English and Russian fur hunters were drawn to Spanish (and then Mexican) California in a California Fur Rush, to exploit its enormous fur resources.

In the early 18th century, Russians began to hunt sea otters in the Kuril Islands and sold them to the Chinese at Kyakhta. Russia was also exploring the far northern Pacific at this time, and sent Vitus Bering to map the Arctic coast and find routes from Siberia to North America. In 1741, on his second North Pacific voyage, Bering was shipwrecked off Bering Island in the Commander Islands, where he and many of his crew died. The surviving crew members, which included naturalist Georg Steller, discovered sea otters on the beaches of the island and spent the winter hunting sea otters and gambling with otter pelts. They returned to Siberia, having killed nearly 1,000 sea otters, and were able to command high prices for the pelts.  Thus began what is sometimes called the "Great Hunt", which would continue for another hundred years. The Russians found the sea otter far more valuable than the sable skins that had driven and paid for most of their expansion across Siberia.
   
Our tour guide demonstrates a press they used to pack sea otter pelts into a tight bundle for shipping.
   
Picture of a wealthy Chinese man wearing his sea otter fur hat.
   
Our tour guide shows a wooden visor used by the Aleut hunters used -- or maybe forced -- by the Russians to catch the sea otters and other sea mammals.
   
Bear!
   
This room had various items including porcelain -- also known as "fine china" -- from China for trade.   Although porcelain is no big deal today, in the past it was a very big deal.
   
The magazine room.  Fort Ross was a fort, and all forts have magazines to store their weapons and gun powder.
   
Now in the Kuskov House with a portrain of Kuskov and his wife on the wall.  This house was not furnished.
   

Looking across the fort grounds to the Pacific Ocean beyond.  The other blockhouse -- eight sided -- is at left.

Most of the inhabitants of Settlement Ross resided outside the fort.  Only RAC officials and visitors lived inside.  Population of the settlement varied over the years.  In 1836 the population consisted of 260 people:  120 Russians, 51 Creoles (people descended from Russians married to Native Alaskins and Californians), 50 Kodiak Aleuts, and 39 babtized Indians.
   
Inside the simple, but striking Holy Trinity St. Nicholas Chapel.  Different Russian Orthodox jurisdictions hold service in the reconstructed chapel three times a year.
   
The three of us with the chapel in the background.
   
A good look at the Kuskov House.
 
The Russians brought in 41 cannons of various sizes and origins for defense of the Fort.  They established themselves in such strength that the meager Spanish forces to the south realized they were unable to evict the Russians.
   
Inside the corner blockhouse.   It was from the blockhouse that an attacker could be put under a deadly barrage.  In the event that the stockade wall was breached, the defenders could retire to the blockhouse for a last ditch fight.
   
By 1841 the settlement's agricultural importance had decreased considerably and the local population of fur-bearing marine mammals had been long depleted by international over-hunting.  The settlement had become a financial liability.  Furthermore, the Russian-American Company lacked support from the Tsars, whose foreign interests lay elsewhere.  The Russian government had little interest in maintaining Fort Ross.   In 1867, they would sell Alaska to the U.S. for $7.2 million as well.
 
After Mexico declined to buy the settlement, the Russian-American Company sold it to John Sutter for $30,000, a Mexican citizen of Swiss origin, soon to be renowned for the discovery of gold at his lumber mill in the Sacramento valley.
 
Our interesting guided tour ended here.
   
A good look back at Fort Ross.  A Native Alaskan Village site used to be in the area in front of the fort.   Native Alaskans were brought to Fort Ross by the Russian-American Company to sea mammals and provide a work force for the colony.
   
The beach provided a modest anchorage but heavy cargo was brought in at Bodega Bay.
   
Looking south down the coast.
   
 
   
A nice shot of the cove.
   
A nice Ocean overlook.
   
This pavement used to be part of Highway One.   It ran through the middle of the Fort.   Highway One was relocated between 1976-1979.
   
The old highway One runs north up a hill.
   
Passing by a shattered Cypress Tree.
   
Following a coastal path back to the Visitors Center.
   
 
   
Looking south.
   

Passing by a replica Russian windmill.

Based on the descriptions given by people who visited Fort Ross, it has been concluded that the main windmill, located outside the blockade, was the traditional style Russian stolbovki.  The root word "stolb" means thick vertical pole.

What made the Russian mills significant is that they were the first windmills in California.  At the time, the only mills in California, which was under Spanish/Mexican rule, were either water or animal powered.

In October 2012 a modern interpretation of one of Fort Ross' windmills was erected and placed near the parking lot and visitors center of the State Historic Park [the one pictured here]. The windmill was built completely by hand, using the same methods that were presumed to have been used in the days of the Russian American settlement. Its pieces were constructed in Russia and shipped to California, where it was fully assembled and now stands as the only working Russian windmill of this style.
   

We hit the very nice Visitors Center before leaving Fort Ross.

People probably don't realize that while England, France and Spain were exploring and settling the New World to the west, the Russians were exploring and settling new lands to the east.
   
A painting of Aleut hunters with wooden visors in their sea lion ski-covered kayaks hunting sea otters.  Notice the sea lion whiskers decorating the visors.  The Aleuts hunted with harpoons.
   

The sea otter was once abundant -- estimated at 150,000 to 300,000 -- in a wide arc across the North Pacific ocean, from northern Japan to Alaska to Mexico.

The fur trade that began in the 1740s had by 1911 reduced the sea otter's numbers to an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 members in 13 colonies in the most remote and inaccessible parts of its range.

The historic population of California sea otters was estimated at 16,000 before the fur trade decimated the population, leading to their assumed extinction. Today's population of California sea otters are the descendants of a single colony of about 50 sea otters located near Bixby Creek Bridge in March 1938 by Howard G. Sharpe, owner of the nearby Rainbow Lodge on Bixby Bridge in Big Sur.

Sea otters were once numerous in San Francisco Bay.  Historical records revealed the Russian-American Company snuck Aleuts into San Francisco Bay multiple times, despite the Spanish capturing or shooting them while hunting sea otters in the estuaries of San Jose, San Mateo, San Bruno and around Angel Island.  The founder of Fort Ross, Ivan Kuskov, finding otters scarce on his second voyage to Bodega Bay in 1812, sent a party of Aleuts to San Francisco Bay, where they met another Russian party and an American party, and caught 1,160 sea otters in three months.  By 1817, sea otters in the area were practically eliminated

In about two-thirds of its former range, the species is at varying levels of recovery, with high population densities in some areas and threatened populations in others. Sea otters currently have stable populations in parts of the Russian east coast, Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, and California, with reports of recolonizations in Mexico and Japan.  Population estimates made between 2004 and 2007 give a worldwide total of approximately 107,000 sea otters.

During the 20th century, sea otter populations recovered from remnant populations in the far east of Russia, western Alaska, and California. Beginning in the 1960s, efforts to translocate sea otters to previously populated areas were also successful in restoring sea otters to other parts of the west coast of North America. Populations in some areas are now thriving, and the recovery of the sea otter is considered one of the greatest successes in marine conservation.

In two important parts of its range, however, sea otter populations have recently declined or have plateaued at depressed levels. In the Aleutian Islands, a massive and unexpected disappearance of sea otters has occurred since the 1980s. The cause of the decline is not known, although the observed pattern of disappearances is consistent with a rise in orca predation. Sea otters give live birth. In the 1990s, California's sea otter population stopped growing for reasons that are probably different from the difficulties facing Alaska's otters.

The sea otter's range is currently discontinuous. It is absent from about a third of its former range, including all of Oregon and northern California, and it has only recently begun to reappear in Mexico and northern Japan. Sea otters can do well in captivity, and are featured in over 40 public aquaria and zoos.

In 1973, the sea otter population in Alaska was estimated at between 100,000 and 125,000 animals.  In the 1980s, the population in the Aleutian Islands of western Alaska was home to an estimated 55,000 to 100,000 sea otters, but the population plummeted to around 6,000 animals by 2000.  As of 2006, there are an estimated 73,000 sea otters in Alaska.

 
   
A model of the Russian stolbovki windmill.
   
Our tour guide had mentioned you could see the infamous San Andreas Fault on the other side of the Highway One, so we checked that out after leaving Fort Ross.  There was also a nice redwood grove there:
   
Lynnette risking death by straddling the notorious San Andreas Fault.
   
Our first close look of the trip at some big redwoods in the Stanley S. Spyra Memorial Grove.   They would not be the last, and these were babies compared to what we would be seeing.
   
Could this depression in the woods be part of the fault line?
   
Well, I guess I'll have to take their word for it that this is the fault line.
   
 
   
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