May 1778, Captain James Cook's two vessles, The Resolution and the Discovery, sailed north to find the Northwest Passage. Cook found Fire Island and the land that is now Anchorage.

The Anchorage area was originally inhabited by the Tanaina Indians (a tribe of the Athabaskan Tribe).

 

In 1784 the Russians moved to the territory of Western and Southcentral Alaska. In 1794 English commander George Vancouver visited Cook Inlet and saw the Russain trading posts including the one named Tyonek, across the Cook Inlet from Kenai. In the early 1800's the Russians tried to change the Tanainans religion to Russian Orthodox by blessing their tribes. Small pox almost wiped out the Tanaina Indian tribes.

 

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