A little day trip to Fort Ross

In 1812, they landed on the northwestern coast of the Americas eager to expand upon their sea otter fur trade industry and explore what the Americas could offer. They traveled across the seas from Russia and  could not have landed at more beautiful spot along the American coastline. 

If you were a Russian sailor, fur trader, or one of the Alaskan natives they "brought" with them, you would have first built your settlement, your fortress, to protect you from the Spanish that had come from the south, or the natives that had been there since time began.

You would have established a home.

And a place to worship your god in the orthodox way you were used to.

Someone among you would have fashioned a bell to call you to worship.

(And it would ring two centuries later on a foggy July morning.)

Your settlement would extend beyond your fortress and travel south as you built your farms and your community. A walk along the bluffs, with a majestic view of the ocean, would be your daily dose of medicine. You would never tire of the beauty as you thanked God for leading you to such a paradise.

 

As those of your own passed on you would find a small hill to claim as a resting place. You would mark their graves with the orthodox cross, watching the community of the dead grow in numbers: a reminder that your home is not here on earth. 

You would have grown used to the hard work, the mild weather, the dance of fog and sun in the summer months, the rhythmic sound of the surf, the salt on your skin. Your life among the mild, peaceful, coastal  elements would have been in stark contrast to that of your country of birth.

Two hundred years later as I stepped foot inside their fortress, and walked the land they once occupied, it was not hard to imagine that they would have welcomed the change.

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For more info on Fort Ross, click here. For an explanation of the grave crosses, click here.