Baranov Castle

Welcome to Booze & Ghouls as we climb Castle Hill in Sitka, Alaska—where colonial battles, ancestral resilience, Russian micromanagers, and phantom cannon blasts all left their fingerprints. This isn’t your average haunting; it’s a whole spectral council meeting on one hill.

 

Resources Used

• The Russians in America: 1799–1867 by Hubert Howe Bancroft
• Russian-American Company Records – Alaska State Archives (Sitka)
• Tlingit Oral Histories – Sealaska Heritage Institute
• U.S. Dept. of Interior, National Park Service – Sitka National Historical Park documentation
• Russians in Alaska, 1732–1867 by Lydia T. Black
• The Tlingit Indians by George T. Emmons (ed. Frederica de Laguna)
• Alaska’s History: The People, Land, and Events of the North Country by Harry Ritter
• Colonial Sitka: Conflict at the Edge of Empire by Katherine L. Arndt
• Sitka Historical Society & Museum – local archival accounts
• Alaska Office of History & Archaeology – Castle Hill (Noow Tlein) Site Reports
• Local ranger and tourism logs documenting modern encounters