Believed to be the oldest surviving Russian Orthodox church in Alaska, St. Nicholas is significant in local history as a material record of the influence of the Orthodox Church.
The principal chief of Juneau, Ishkhanalykh, is reported to have contacted the Russian priest at St. Michael's Cathedral in Sitka, Father V. Dukhov, in 1890, expressing a wish to join the Orthodox faith.
The Sitka Indian chief, Khliantych, who was acting as intermediary, added his own belief that if Chief Ishkhanalykh were baptized first, the other Juneau natives would join the Church.
On July 26, 1892, Nicholas, Bishop of Alaska, visited Juneau and was met by a delegation of Juneau chiefs who said they wished to be baptized and that they would donate land, lumber, and labor for a church.
Asking the reason for this enthusiasm, Nicholas was told of a local tradition: A young Indian man had a vision. A venerable old man came to him and advised him to go to Sitka and to be baptized. The young man followed the advice.
A few years later he became sick, and on his deathbed he called for the elders of his tribe and told them that the same venerable old man came to see him again and told him to advise all other Indians to be baptized. The young man died, but his message did not die with him. Other Indians started to have the same vision, and the urge to be baptized spread like a wild fire.
Nicholas, impressed, agreed to the construction of a church and left a priest at Juneau. Three days later, Chief Ishkhanalykh and his wife were baptized and received the Christian names Dimitrii and Elizaveta.
St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church is a small wood frame structure built on an octagonal plan with a small covered entryway extending from one of its eight sides. Seven of the eight sides have large eight-light windows running from just below the eaves of the shingled roof to halfway down each side.
Above the eaves small cupolas on four of the eight panels elaborate the roof as it slopes up to the onion dome which is capped by an Orthodox cross.
A smaller cross tops the belfry that is on the covered entryway.