Alyeska: Difference between revisions

Alyeska was occupied by various indigenous peoples for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. The area that the nation now consists of is considered the entry point for the settlement of North America by way of the Bering land bridge. Russians were the first Europeans to reach Alyeska in the mid 17th century and the history of Alyeska has been shaped by subsequent Russian colonization since. Before the 1860's Alyeska was a backwater of the Russian empire with sparse colonization mainly driven by missionary work and the prestige gained by owning an American colony. Starting in the late 19th century after the Russian pacific naval build up and the building of the Tran Siberian railway settlement increased in Alyeska with the Russian Empire using Novo-Arhangelsk & Kodiak as between-ports to trade with the Americas and South Pacific. Settlement of the colony massively increased during the Alyeskan gold rush of the late 1890's with thousands of Russian, Japanese, Korean & English prospectors flooding into the region. After the Russian Revolution Alyeska was used as place to exile political prisoners and as one of the final locations for a series of population transfers undertaken by the Russian National Union in the 1930's and 1940's.