[6]: 37–39  Baranov was forced to levy 10,000 rubles in ransom to Captain Barber of the British sailing ship Unicorn for the safe return of the surviving settlers.

The original Cathedral of Saint Michael was built in Sitka in 1848 and became the seat of the Russian Orthodox bishop of Kamchatka, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands, and Alaska.

Although the church was restored to its original appearance, one exception was its clock face, which is black in photographs taken before 1966, but white in subsequent photos.

Russia was going through economic and political turmoil after it lost the Crimean War to Britain, France, and the Ottoman Empire in 1856, and decided it wanted to sell Alaska before British Canadians tried to conquer the territory.

Secretary of State William Seward had wanted to purchase Alaska for quite some time, as he saw it as an integral part of Manifest Destiny and America's reach to the Pacific Ocean.

[14] By 1914, the organization had constructed the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall on Katlian Street, which was named after a Tlingit war chief in the early period of Russian colonization.

[15] In 1937, the United States Navy established the first seaplane base in Alaska on Japonski Island, across the Sitka Channel from the town.

[16] A shore boat system was then established to transfer the approximately 1,000 passengers a day until the O'Connell Bridge was built in 1972.

Edgecumbe Hospital, U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Sitka, and the port and facilities for the USCGC Kukui.

Sitka has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb) with moderate, but generally cool, temperatures and abundant precipitation.

[21] The winters are extremely mild compared to inland areas of similar and much more southerly parallels, due to the intense maritime moderation.

The relatively mild nights ensure that four months stay above the 50 °F (10 °C) isotherm that normally separates inland areas from being boreal in nature.

Mount Edgecumbe, a 3,200-foot (980 m) "historically active"[25] stratovolcano, is located on southern Kruzof Island, approximately 24 km (15 mi) west of Sitka and can be seen from the city on a clear day.

[...] The recent swarm inspired an in-depth analysis of the last 7.5 years of ground deformation detectable with radar satellite data.

[...] The coincidence of earthquakes and ground deformation in time and location suggests that these signals are likely due to the movement of magma beneath Mount Edgecumbe, as opposed to tectonic activity.

Initial modeling of the deformation signal shows that it is consistent with an intrusion of new material (magma) at about 5 km (3.1 mi) below sea level.

[38] In 1980, Sitka rose to 4th largest city with 7,803 residents (of whom 5,718 were non-Hispanic White, 1,669 were Native American, 228 were Asian, 108 were Hispanic (of any race), 87 were Other, 44 were Black and 7 were Pacific Islander).

Many Sitkans hunt and gather subsistence foods such as fish, deer, berries, seaweeds and mushrooms for personal use.

In December 2012 the Blue Lake Expansion project began, which added 27 percent more electricity for the residents of Sitka.

[42] International trade is relatively minor, with total exports and imports valued at $474,000 and $146,000, respectively, in 2005 by the American Association of Port Authorities.

During Russian rule, Sitka was a busy seaport on the west coast of North America,[46] mentioned a number of times by Dana in his popular account of an 1834 sailing voyage Two Years Before the Mast.

After the transfer of Alaska to U.S. rule, the Pacific Coast Steamship Company began tourist cruises to Sitka in 1884.

This week-long event includes a reenactment ceremony of the signing of the Alaska purchase, as well as interpretive programs at museums and parks, special exhibits, aircraft displays and film showings, receptions, historic sites and buildings tours, food, prose writing contest essays, Native and other dancing, and entertainment and more.

[61] Sitka hosts one active post-secondary institution, the University of Alaska Southeast-Sitka Campus, located on Japonski Island in an old World War II hangar.

It receives about 100,000 guests annually and houses a collection of 75,000 books, audiobooks, music recordings, reference resources, videos (DVD and VHS), as well as an assortment of Alaskan and national periodicals.

By air, Sitka Rocky Gutierrez Airport offers scheduled passenger jet service operated year-round by Alaska Airlines and seasonally by Delta Connection.

Sitka's location on the outer coast of the Alaska Panhandle is removed from routes running through Chatham Strait.

[68] Alaska Marine Lines, a barge and freight company, has the ability to move cars to other communities connected to the mainland by road systems.

The hospital serves as a regional referral center for people throughout Southeast Alaska, and also provides primary outpatient care.

Sitka's position between the Pacific Ocean and the most mountainous island in the Alexander Archipelago creates a variety of outdoor opportunities: