Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-4923787-20131012165847/@comment-440838-20131118012543

Here is a map of the "Gold District", much of it is located in Alaska. My idea is that the Gold Rush has started sooner than in OTL. Probably some Russian fur-trader accidentally discovered the gold, and learning about this made Alexander II to reject the idea of selling Alaska.

And starting a war because of gold sounds more plausible than starting a war because of... uhm, whatever was Britain's excuse for attacking Russia in the Crimean War. I believe the main reason why Russia had sold Alaska in OTL was because its authorities thought it would be impossible to protect the territory from British aggression. So in this timeline I suggest their fears to come true.