How crew of 19th century Alaska shipwreck survived found

Researchers have pieced together an archaeological and historical narrative of how the crew of the wrecked 19th century Russian-American Company sailing ship Neva survived the harsh subarctic winter.
"The items left behind by survivors provide a unique snapshot-in-time for January 1813, and might help us to understand the adaptations that allowed them to await rescue in a frigid, unfamiliar environment for almost a month," said Dave McMahan of the Sitka Historical Society.
The work stems from a 2012 survey project by the US Forest Service, the Alaska Office of History and Archaeology and the Sitka Historical Society.
At that time, archaeologists discovered caches of Russian axes at a location they predicted to be the survivor camp.

Those crew-members survived for almost a month in the winter of 1813 by foraging and gathering materials that washed ashore from the wreck.
Researchers 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, a Russian axe, and a fishhook fashioned from copper.

Gun flints found at the site appeared to have been used by survivors to 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 the survivors 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.

The researchers 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 with ingenuity.
Before its Arctic demise, the 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 ship 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 programme of colonisation.
The Neva came to grief after leaving the Siberian port of Okhotsk for Sitka in late August of 1812, McMahan said.
During a gruelling 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 favourable 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.