This 1826 map of Chukotka Territory, the Aleutian Islands and the northwestern coast of America is from a larger work, Geograficheskii atlas Rossiiskoi imperii, tsarstva Pol'skogo i velikogo kniazhestva Finliandskogo (Geographical atlas of the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Poland, and the Grand Duchy of Finland), containing 60 maps of the Russian Empire. Compiled and engraved by Colonel V.P. Piadyshev, it reflects the detailed mapping carried out by Russian military cartographers in the first quarter of the 19th century. The map shows population centers (five gradations by size), borders with foreign lands, district borders, and forts. Distances are shown in versts, a Russian measure, now no longer used, equal to 1.07 kilometers. Legends and place-names are in Russian and French. The region shown on the map was the most remote part of the Russian Empire. The maritime fur trade, based on the pelt of the sea otter, was the economic engine for Russian expansion in this region for more than 125 years. Several Russian joint-stock companies were established to tap the enormous fur wealth; they built towns all along the Aleutian Islands and Pacific Coast of Alaska (many on the Kenai Peninsula and Prince William Sound areas). Grigorii Ivanovich Shelikhov set up his Shelikhov-Golikov Company on Kodiak Island in 1784. By 1799, his company expanded to southeastern Alaska and established a fort near present-day Sitka. The company received a charter of monopoly from Tsar Paul I in 1799 and became the Russian-American Company. The Russian Orthodox Church also sent missionaries to this region, beginning with the monks and novices from Valaam Monastery near the Finnish border who went to Alaska in 1794.