Archaeologists have begun to piece together an archaeological and historical narrative of how the crew of the wrecked 19th century Russian-American Company frigate Neva survived the harsh Alaskan winter.
This 1814 print includes an image of the Neva. Image credit: Dave McMahan / Sitka Historical Society.
Before its Arctic demise, the frigate Neva was famous as one of two vessels that completed the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe from 1803-1807.
The ship later fought in the 1804 Battle of Sitka, a pivotal engagement in the Russian struggle for control over what was then the Alaska territory.
After 1808, the frigate was in the exclusive service of the Russian-American Company, which Tsar Paul I chartered to establish new settlements in Russian America, primarily Alaska, and carry out a program of colonization.
The Neva came to grief after leaving the Siberian port of Okhotsk for Sitka in late August of 1812.
During a grueling three-month voyage, those on board endured water shortages and sickness. Fierce storms damaged the ship’s rigging. In mid-November the weakened sailors finally found shelter in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and, after much debate, made a desperate attempt to reach Sitka.
In favorable weather, they almost reached their destination before wrecking off Kruzof Island. The wreck killed 32; another 15 had already died at sea. Of the 28 who made it to shore, 26 survived for almost a month before their rescue.
The wreck of the frigate Neva has been surrounded by stories and legends for 200 years. Although survivors were rescued and taken to Sitka, few accounts of their experience were collected or published. No official records relating to the wreck and its aftermath have been discovered.
An international team of archaeologists with the Neva Project is seeking to verify the wreck location and confirm the site of a survivor camp.
The team, led by Dave McMahan, an archaeologist with the Sitka Historical Society, also hopes that Tlingit oral history will add to the story and help to place the wreck in a broader context.
In 2012, the archaeologists discovered caches of axes at a location they predicted to be the survivor camp.
They believe articles they found over the past two years represent the everyday tools used by 26 shipwrecked members of the Neva’s crew. Those crewmembers survived for almost a month in the winter of 1813 by foraging and gathering materials that washed ashore from the wreck.
A representative collection of artifacts discovered in July 2015 includes, from left: part of a set of dividers, a nail, a fishhook, a buckle, sheet copper, gun flints and a musket ball. Image credit: Dave McMahan / Sitka Historical Society.
In July 2015, the team discovered at the campsite a series of hearths with early 19th century artifacts such as gun flints, musket balls, pieces of modified sheet copper, iron and copper spikes, an axe, and a fishhook fashioned from copper.
Well-preserved food middens will allow reconstruction of the foraging strategies the sailors used to survive.
Gun flints found at the site appeared to have been used by survivors to used start fires, by striking them against steel.
Historical accounts credit a firearm used in this manner with helping save the crew from hypothermia.
Physical evidence indicates members of the Neva’s crew tried to whittle down musket balls to fit a smaller caliber weapon, such as a flintlock – most likely the same firearm mentioned in the historical accounts. Some of the copper spikes recovered had been broken through shear stress, such a wreck would produce.
The archaeologists believe one copper or brass artifact is part of a set of a navigator’s dividers, saved by a crewman as the ship violently broke apart over rocks.
The nature of the artifacts seems to strongly indicate that survivors of the shipwreck were active in ensuring their own survival. They modified wreckage in desperation, but with ingenuity.
“Collectively, the artifacts reflect improvisation in a survival situation, and do not include ceramics, glass and other materials that would be associated with a settlement,” McMahan said.
McMahan and his colleagues hope to continue the investigation next year with a smaller field effort at the camp.
Longer-range plans for the Neva Project include a ‘virtual museum’ with 3D scans of artifacts, along with a short film that can be used in local educational curricula.
