The Russian traders after visiting California in 1806 built Fort Ross, California in 1812 on the California coast in Sonoma County, California—just north of San Francisco. This was the southernmost outpost of the Russian-American Company. To keep unwanted Spanish intrusion away the Russians built a palisaded fort equipped with several cannons. Their objective in setting up Ft. Ross was to harvest fur seals and sea otters and grow grain and vegetables for the use of other Russian trading centers in Russian Alaska. The fur company at Fort Ross typically had a few score Russians with up to 75 Aleut who harvested (usually under some duress) the fur seals and sea otters from their kayaks on or near the Farallon Islands, the Channel Islands of California and in the ports and bays around San Francisco Bay. The Aleuts of Russian Alaska probably had the largest effect on the Channel islands and its people. These otter-hunters from the Aleutian Islands set up camps on the surrounding Channel Islands and traded with the native peoples in exchange for permission to hunt otters and seals around the island.