Photo: Jim Gove (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walk through Sitka National Historical Park, about half a mile east of Harrigan Centennial Hall. It begins at the Sheldon Jackson Museum, a concrete octagon built between 1895 and 1897 to keep Alaska Native collections safe from fire, and at the visitor center, home of the Southeast Alaska Indian Cultural Center and of the original poles in Totem Hall. The trail then runs through the forest along the shore, past Tlingit and Haida poles from Old Kasaan, Tuxekan, Klinkwan, Klawock and Sukkwan, most of them copies carved by Native carvers from the 1930s onward, each read figure by figure. It ends at the mouth of the Indian River, at the clearing where the Kiksádi fort Shís'gi Noow stood, the K'alyáan Pole, and the Russian Memorial, telling the battle of 1804 and the Survival March as the Kiksádi remember it.
16 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 4 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 1 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Sheldon Jackson Museum, Sitka National Historical Park Visitor Center, Bicentennial Pole, Saanaheit Pole, Yaadaas Crest Pole.
Frog/Raven Pole, Yaadaas Crest Corner Poles, Wolf Pole, Cormorant Memorial Pole, Raven/Shark Pole, Trader Legend Pole.
Gaanax.ádi Raven Crest Pole, Raven Memorial Pole, Mosquito Legend Pole, K'alyáan Pole, Kiks.ádi Fort Site and the Russian Memorial.
A concrete octagon of 1895 to 1897, built to give Alaska Native and natural-history collections a home that would not burn.
Duane Pasco's red-cedar pole telling two hundred years of Native history, read from a fisherman at the base to a modern figure on top.
A 55-foot copy of the pole Saanaheit gave on condition it stand in Sitka as a memorial to his people, after two world's fairs.
A copy of a Kaigani Haida ridicule pole from Sukkwan, raised to shame someone publicly, with a bearded white man at the top.
Carved in 1999 to honor K'alyáan and the Kiksádi who died in 1804, standing in the clearing of their fort, Shís'gi Noow.
The battleground where the Kiksádi held their fort for six days before leaving by night on the march they call the Survival March.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 16 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 16 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Sitka — the Totem Trail and the Battle of 1804, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
16 narration points, including Sheldon Jackson Museum, Sitka National Historical Park Visitor Center, Bicentennial Pole, Saanaheit Pole and Yaadaas Crest Pole. That is about 12 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 16 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.