ChatRoom
Search
TrailHead
Base Camp

North Pacific Hunters in the Channel

The Spanish were not the only foreigners to contact the native peoples living in the Channel region. They also had to contend with fur hunters who came down from the Russia and the Aleutian Archipelago in the North Pacific Ocean. These visitors were aggressive and mercenary in their hunting practices and in their interaction with the native residents. The international popularity of the sea otter fur trade created a need to supply buyers in China, Europe and America, and brought Russian hunting ships with crews of Aleutian and Kodiak natives down form the North Pacific during the late 1700s and early 1800s. The mercenary hunting practices of these people decimated the sea otter population and they were the source of severe conflicts with the native islanders.

It is thought The Lone Woman of San Nicolas was one of the remaining survivors on an island that had lost its native male population to the North Pacific invaders. Evidence suggests that by the time the Spanish priests sent ships to collect the remaining natives of San Nicholas off that remote island, the only remaining inhabitants on San Nicholas Island were survivors of a terrible slaughter of the island’s men at the hand of the North Pacific Native Americans, who then took ownership of the island, the women, and the children, only leaving when their ships returned from the North to take them home. Artifacts found on the island show the influence of these mercenary hunters.