In 1813, the Russian exploration ship Neva wrecked near Mount Edgecumbe on Kruzof Island, about 93 miles (150 km) southwest of Juneau and 10 miles (16 km) west of Sitka, Alaska. The island is 23 miles (37 km) long and 8.1 miles (13 km) wide, with a land area of 106,880 acres (43,252 ha). The Tlingit name, recorded in 1849 by Captain Mikhail D. Tebenkov of the Imperial Russian Navy, was “Tlikh.” In 1775, Don Juan de la Bodega y Quadra named the island’s dominant peak “Montana de San Jacinto,” after which the island became known as San Jacinto or, as Captain Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse called it, Saint Hyacinthe. In 1787, Captain Nathaniel Portlock named it “Pitt Island.” Early Russian traders called it “Sitka Island,” but in 1805 Captain Yuri F. Lisyansky named it “Crooze Island,” after a Russian admiral. In 1849, Constantin Grewingk called it “Edgecumb or Krusow Island,” and “Kruzof” was adopted by the US Board of Geographic Names in 1906. The island is formed in part by Mount Edgecumbe, a stratovolcano, along with several volcanic and collapsed cones comprising the Mount Edgecumbe Volcanic Field.

The volcanic field is associated with the active Fairweather-Queen Charlotte fault but is considered dormant. The most recent activity is represented by a dacite flow postdating ash deposited around 5,000 years ago. Lava flows and tephra deposits are locally interleaved with Quaternary fluvial, alluvial, and glacial deposits overlying bedrock. The bedrock consists mostly of Pleistocene basalt flows from Mount Edgecumbe—dark-gray plagioclase, olivine, and porphyritic basalt with intercalated breccia and tuff. Some basalt flows underlie glacial till; others overlie post-glacial tephra deposits. Evidence from glacial landforms and deposits suggests that much of Baranof and Kruzof islands was covered by ice during the last glacial maximum, though Mount Edgecumbe on Kruzof Island and west-facing mountain flanks south of Whale Bay on Baranof Island may have been unglaciated. Kruzof Island has no permanent residents but has several maintained hiking trails. From the 1950s through the 1970s, its forests were clear-cut for timber and it remains a potential site for future hydroelectric and geothermal power development. 

The Russian exploration ship Neva, originally a British merchant vessel named the Thames and launched in 1801, was purchased by Russia in 1803 and renamed. She made two voyages to the Far East: the first was part of Russia’s inaugural circumnavigation of the globe; the second departed Okhotsk in August 1812, bound for Fort Saint Archangel Mikhail and Sitka. After three months of storms, sickness, and water shortages, the ship reached Prince William Sound. Despite rigging damage, the crew pressed on toward Sitka, but in January 1813, near Kruzof Island and only miles from their destination, the Neva struck a reef and sank. Twenty-eight survivors struggled ashore with almost nothing and endured nearly a month before rescuers arrived. Archaeologists have since discovered the wreck site and the survivors’ encampment, and are uncovering how these sailors lived for a month in harsh conditions. Read more here and here. Explore more of Mount Edgecumbe and Kruzof Island here: