3. Who were the first Europeans to settle in Alaska and what brought them there?

The Russians were the first to settle in Alaska, at Three Saints Bay, in 1784; the primary motivation was the fur trade. Later on the United States bought Alaska from Russia. The site is now a National Monument; also, on a local note, the Russians extended colonization down to California, resulting in a town called Sebastopol, also there are still many Russian Orthodox religion natives. The Russians decided to no longer control Alaska because of (1) decline in furs (2) Indian troubles.

Russians were the first Europeans to settle here, they enslaved the natives and almost made seals extinct from salvaging their fur.What brought them here was the fur prospects. Their control ended when William Seward purchased Alaska from the Russians at $7.2million because the fur was running out, the Russians were done with Alaska. There are a lot of Russian churches still left here and there are artifacts from that time in many museums.

Probably fur, I expect ruins of stores would remain. Check this out on google

sorry not that good inhistory