Alaskan Memories
A travel report

Geography and History

Alaska
Excerpted from Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia
Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 Compton's NewMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The last American frontier, Alaska is the largest of the states in size and the second smallest in population. Nearly everything about this 49th state is big. Its Mount McKinley is higher than any other peak in North America. Its Yukon River is one of the longest navigable waterways in the world. Huge animals still thrive in its open spaces Kodiak, grizzly, black, and polar bears; moose, caribou, musk-oxen, wolves; otter, walrus, seals, humpback and killer whales.

Alaska is a land of spectacular contrasts smoking volcanoes and frozen tundra, hot springs and ice floes, creeping glaciers and virgin forests. This vast, raw, and rugged land thrusts a chain of volcanic islands more than a thousand miles southwest into the Bering Sea. Reaching beyond the international date line, the land area originally spanned four time zones. It juts northward far into the Arctic Circle, and to the south its Panhandle extends for miles between the Pacific Ocean and the Canadian Rockies.

The Stars and Stripes have flown over Alaska since March 30, 1867, when the vast land was purchased from Russia for 7.2 million dollars. In 1959 Alaska became the first new state since New Mexico and Arizona had achieved statehood in 1912, which was also the year Alaska was incorporated as a territory the first step toward statehood.

The state is so large that it increased the area of the United States by a fifth. Alaska is more than twice the size of Texas, long its predecessor as the largest state. About a third of the vast area is forested, and glaciers cover more than 28,800 square miles (74,590 square kilometers). The Malaspina glacier complex is larger than the state of Rhode Island.

The name Alaska comes from the Aleut word alaxsxaq, meaning "object toward which the action of the sea is directed" that is, the mainland. Its nicknames are the Land of the Midnight Sun and America's Last Frontier. It was once labeled "Seward's folly" and "Seward's icebox" in ridicule of the secretary of state who negotiated the purchase of what was considered a liability.

• Alaska is by far the largest of the USA's 50 states - more than twice the size of Texas - but ranks 49th on population.
  
• Alaska has the northernmost, westernmost and easternmost points in the USA.
  
• Alaska is only three miles from Russia.
  
• Alaska has more coastline than the rest of the USA combined.
  
• Barrow, America's northernmost city, has 84 straight summer days during which the sun never sets; in winter, it has 67 straight days when the sun never rises.
  
• The USA paid 2 cents per acre to buy Alaska from Russia in 1867. The purchase was regarded as a folly - until gold was discovered.
  
• Mount McKinley, at 20320 ft, is the highest mountain in North America.
  
• The Malaspina Glacier is larger in area than Rhode Island.
  
• Some 90% of all American bald eagles (about 27000) live in Alaska.
  
• Alaska has more than 1400 miles of ferry routes, known as "marine highways".
  
• Alaska has more planes and pilots per capita than any other US state.
  
• The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race from Anchorage to Nome, held every February, is the world's longest and richest dog-sledding event.
  
• Anchorage is almost equidistant between New York and Tokyo.
  
• Sitka was once the largestcity on the west coast of North America.
  
• Turnagain Arm, in the Cook Inlet near Anchorage, has abore tide that can approach 39 feet - the second greatest in North America.
  
• Alaskan waters boast 10 species of great whales, among them the humpback.
  
• The first white man known to have visited Alaska was a Dane, Vitus Bering, in 1728; shorly after the Russian came.
  
• The Trans Alaska Pipeline pumps 1.9 million barrels of oil a day from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez..
  
• Alaska became the 49th state of the USA in 1959.
  
• On March 1989, the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef, spilling more than 10 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound.
  
• About 40% of Alaska consists of federally protected wildlife refuges and national forests, parks, and preserves.
  

Alaska occupies a huge peninsula, from which hang two long extensions. To the southwest stretch the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands chain. To the southeast is a 500-mile- (805-kilometer-) long strip bordering on British Columbia. On its eastern side the Alaskan mainland is adjacent to Canada's Yukon Territory. Alaska's total area is 591,004 square miles (1,530,693 square kilometers), including 20,171 square miles (52,243 square kilometers) of lakes and rivers. With its islands, Alaska has 33,904 miles (54,562 kilometers) of shoreline.

Northward, Alaska extends the United States to Point Barrow on the Arctic Ocean. About one third of Alaska is within the Arctic Circle. Westward, the Aleutian Islands chain stretches across the Pacific Ocean into the Eastern Hemisphere. Attu, Alaska's westernmost island, is located at 173 E longitude. This is directly north of New Zealand. The distance from Attu, in the Aleutians, to Ketchikan, in the Panhandle, is greater than the distance from San Francisco, Calif., to New York City.

The tip of the Seward Peninsula, on the Alaskan mainland, is a little more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) across the Bering Strait from the Russian mainland. Through the Bering Strait runs the international date line. On one side is Little Diomede Island, a part of the United States. On the other side of the date line, a couple of miles away, is Big Diomede Island, which is part of Russia.

Shortly before his death in 1725, Czar Peter the Great ordered Captain-Commander Vitus Bering, a Danish navigator in the service of Russia, to find out whether Siberia was joined to North America. He reached Bering Strait in 1728, but because of heavy fog, he failed to sight North America.

Bering set out for America on June 8, 1741, in two ships: the Sviatoi Petr (Saint Peter), which he commanded, and the Sviatoi Pavel (Saint Paul), commanded by Aleksey Chirikov. Each ship had several scientists aboard. On June 20 the vessels became separated. On July 15 Chirikov sighted land, probably Prince of Wales Island. Bering, who was farther north, came upon Kayak Island the next day. He could see a great mountain in the distance, which he named Saint Elias because July 16 was St. Elias's Day. Georg Wilhelm Steller, the ship's surgeon and a noted German scientist, went ashore on Kayak Island to gather plants to help crew members suffering from scurvy. While ashore, Steller gathered artefacts, plant specimens, and a few birds and concluded that the ship had reached North America. Chirikov returned to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski on October 8, but Bering's ship was wrecked in the Komandorskiye Islands east of Kamchatka. The explorers spent the winter on what is now Bering Island, and Bering died there.

Bering's party had brought back animal pelts, notably those of the sea otter, one of the finest fur-bearing animals. From 1743 on, Russian fur merchants sent hunters who quickly subjected the Aleut. At least four-fifths of the Aleut are estimated to have been wiped out in the first two generations after Russian contact. European diseases such as smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, venereal disease, and pneumonia, as well as Russian guns, reduced the Aleut from an estimated pre-contact population between 15,000 and 20,000 to 2247 in 1834, and 1400 in 1848. By 1864, following intermarriage with Russians, the population was up to 2005, but by 1890 it declined to 1702. The hunters moved eastward along the island chain as the supply of animals thinned out. As they moved farther from Kamchatka, costs went up and smaller companies dropped out.

The Russian fur companies were annoyed by the foreign competition, especially from the British, who offered the indigenous peoples better and cheaper goods than the Russians did. The Russians felt it was necessary to establish a colony. In 1784 Shelikhov built several ships and sailed to Kodiak Island. After defeating some Eskimo in a skirmish, he established the first permanent Russian settlement there on Three Saints Bay. By 1786 Shelikhov was the leading fur merchant in the Aleutians but needed an able manager for his enterprises. He found one in Aleksandr Andreyevich Baranov, a Siberian fur merchant, who arrived on Kodiak in 1791. He soon moved the settlement from Three Saints Bay to Pavlovsk, on the northern side of the island, which had a better harbour and abundant forests to provide wood for construction. Pavlovsk is now the town of Kodiak.

Baranov faced many problems. Much of the food and almost all finished goods had to be imported, and Russian supply ships were few. Labour was a key problem throughout the Russian period. There never were enough workers for defence, shipbuilding, or the day-to-day tasks of the colony. Therefore, Natives made up much of the workforce and did most of the fur hunting, while the Russian colonists trapped, cured skins, and stood guard duty. Baranov also built settlements in the Aleutians; the most important, Novo-Arkhangel’sk (New Archangel) was built in 1799. In 1802 the Tlingit attacked and destroyed the fort. Baranov returned in 1804 and, aided by a Russian warship, defeated the Tlingit. He then rebuilt Novo-Arkhangel’sk 4.8 km (3 mi) to the south, where it grew to become the city of Sitka.

Shelikhov died in 1795. His son-in-law and successor, Nikolay Petrovich Rezanov, obtained in 1799 a charter from the Russian ruler, Czar Paul I, that granted his company, the Russian-American Company, a monopoly of the American fur trade. It empowered the company to take possession of all territories already occupied by Russians north of 55° north latitude and to establish new settlements not only in that area but also to the south, provided this did not cause conflict with other powers. The directors of the company retired Baranov in 1818. He sailed for Russia, but died at sea on the way. His retirement came in the last years of the company's charter and ushered in a new phase in the development of Russian America. Russian naval officers succeeded him.

The navy improved the colony's administration, considerably enlarging the bureaucracy. But unlike Baranov, the naval officers had little interest in business. Also, the Russian navy was unable to stem the intrusion of British and Americans into Alaska. An attempt by the czar to forbid all foreign vessels within 160 km (100 mi) of Russian-claimed lands was met with protests from the British and United States governments. The dispute with the United States was settled by a convention of 1824 setting 54°40' north latitude as the southern boundary of Russian territory. Russia agreed with Britain in 1825 that Russian claims would extend eastward to the 141st meridian, southward to the 56th parallel, and southward from there along a narrow strip of land (the Panhandle) on the Pacific coast. Russia gave both powers the right to trade along the Alaska coast for ten years. That ended Russian expansion in America.

The Russian-American Company attempted to diversify the economy by mining coal, catching whales, and exporting ice to San Francisco, but these ventures amounted to little. By the late 1850s, after Russia lost the Crimean War against the British and French, the government became convinced that it could ill afford the luxury of an American colony. Russia decided to sell its American colony and instructedBaron Eduard Stoeckl, the Russian ambassador to the United States, to negotiate with the United States. Stoeckl began discussions with U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward on March 11, 1867, and at the end of March they drew up the Treaty of Cession and sent it to their governments for ratification. The agreed price was $7.2 million.

Seward had some difficulty getting the Senate of the United States to ratify the treaty, but he carried on a vigorous campaign to gain support, and the Senate agreed by a vote of 37 to 2. A few newspapers denounced what they called "Seward's Folly" or "Walrussia", but the vast majority of the nation's press supported the purchase. In 1868 its merits were fully debated in the U.S. House of Representatives, which had to appropriate the money to pay for the purchase. The House eventually voted on July 18, 1868, to pay Russia for the land. Meanwhile, the United States had taken possession of Alaska on October 18, 1867.

The Russian phase of Alaskan history had lasted 126 years. Russian activities had been mainly limited to the Aleutians, Kodiak, and the Alexander Archipelago. There was some exploration of the Interior, but little settlement. At its peak the Russian population numbered no more than 700. The greatest impact of this period was the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church and its priests among the Aleut and Tlingit, which continues today.

With the gold discovery in the Klondike in Canada's Yukon Territory in 1896, people soon flocked north from all parts of the world. As the gateway to the Klondike, Alaska prospered, and new communities and businesses developed to meet the gold seekers' needs. Many of those disappointed in the Klondike drifted to Alaska. In 1898 four miners discovered gold at Anvil Creek on the Seward Peninsula, and the Nome Mining District was organised there. By the summer of 1900, Nome was a tent city with more than 20,000 miners working the claims and the beaches, which also contained gold.

The next great strike after Nome occurred in the Tanana Valley and led to the founding of Fairbanks in 1902. Other discoveries in the valley helped make Fairbanks the centre of interior Alaska. District Court Judge James Wickersham moved the headquarters of the Third Judicial District to Fairbanks, which attracted other government functions and gave the town economic stability. It acquired schools, churches, and a hospital, and by 1905 its population had grown to 5000.

Gold was mined and new towns founded throughout Alaska. North of the Arctic Circle gold was found near the Chandalar and Koyukuk rivers, where two settlements, Coldfoot and Wiseman, came into existence. In the area of the Kuskokwim and Innoko rivers, Iditarod, McGrath, Bethel, Flat, and Ophir were communities of some size that developed from mining camps.

Alaska is so thinly populated that there is still about 1 square mile (2.6 square kilometers) of land for each person. The most rapid growth occurred immediately after World War II. In 1940 the population was 72,524; by 1990 it had risen to 551,947.

About 16,000 Alaskans are foreign born. Of the total foreign population, the most common nationalities are Russian, Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, and Scandinavian. There are about 85,000 Inuit (or Eskimo), Indians, and Aleuts the three major groups of Alaskan native peoples. Although the majority maintain subsistence economies within their native cultures, many of those who live in the larger villages and cities now choose nontraditional occupations often in local, state, or federal government. Through 13 regional for-profit corporations and affiliated nonprofit corporations they play a large role in Alaska's economy through the traditional fishing, timber, and mining industries.

Inuit are the most numerous of the native Alaskans. They live along the Arctic Ocean-Bering Sea coast and in the great deltas formed by the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. Some are fishermen, hunters, and fur trappers. Others earn their livelihoods from the hides and meat of large herds of reindeer. Many lead nontraditional lives in the more populated areas, with jobs in business and mining.

Native Americans rank second in number. One prominent subgroup is the Tlingit, who live on islands and coasts of the Panhandle. Although the group includes businesspeople, some of these Native Americans pursue the more traditional jobs of fishing during the summer and trapping and hunting in the fall and winter. Some also work in canneries during the summer. Many Tlingit successfully carry on the craft traditions of their people.

The Haida and Tsimshian Indians came to the Panhandle from British Columbia. The Haida are related to the Tlingit and are noted for their artwork and delicate articles made of wood, bone, and shell. Both the Haida and the Tsimshian produce elaborately carved and decorated totem poles. Many of the Tsimshian live in the model village of Metlakatla, which is run partly on a cooperative basis. They own their own fishing boats and operate a salmon cannery, a fish hatchery, and a sawmill. The Athapaskan live in thinly scattered villages in the interior and in south-central Alaska. Many of them are hunters and trappers.

Aleuts are closely related to the Inuit but have their own language and customs. Able seamen and fishermen, they live on the foggy Aleutian and Pribilof islands, the Alaska Peninsula, and Kodiak Island.

For years after the pipeline opened, many residents warned that a major oil spill in northern waters was certain to occur, in part because the oil industry refused to employ double-hulled tankers in the Alaska trade. On the night of March 23, 1989, the Exxon Valdez left the Valdez pipeline terminal bound for Long Beach, California. The tanker's captain, who had a history of alcohol abuse known to his employers, retired to his cabin after the pilot, who had guided the ship through the Valdez Narrows, had left the ship. The third mate, who lacked the U.S. Coast Guard certificate required for controlling vessels in these waters, was alone on the bridge. In the early hours of March 24, the ship hit rocks. Farther along, far outside the shipping lanes which are 16 km (10 mi) wide, the tanker struck Bligh Island, a well-charted reef, and ran aground. More than 38 million litres (10 million gallons) of crude oil was discharged into Prince William Sound, making this the worst spill in North American history. Efforts to clean up the mess mostly made the situation worse. Exxon Corporation, the owner of the vessel, paid out several billion dollars in cleanup and litigation costs.

When breaks in the stormy weather permit, cleanup crews in a bay of Alaska's Eleanor Island come ashore in landing craft meant for infantry assaults. Off Kenai Peninsula, 200 miles away, the 425-ft. Soviet ship Vaydaghubsky stalks chocolate-colored oil on the high seas. At the top of Montague Strait, south of Valdez harbor, the 17,000-ton troopship U.S.S. Juneau has set anchor. The 400 men aboard are on an expedition to cleanse oil-stricken Smith Island before the annual arrival of seals.

A month after the Exxon Valdez disgorged 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, the effort to combat the worst such spill in U.S. history assumed the tempo of a military operation. By last week Exxon alone had mobilized 460 vessels, 26 aircraft and the first 2,850 members of what is expected to be a 4,000-person cleanup brigade. Said a company executive: "We could invade a small country with what we have deployed here."

For all the show of force, however, the recovery drive has made little tangible progress. Exxon estimated that it had cleaned a scant 3,300 ft. of beach, leaving 304 miles of oil-covered shoreline to go in Prince William Sound alone. The company claimed that it would pick up the remaining seaborne oil within the next two weeks and scrub all the fouled shoreline before cold weather arrives in September. But Alaskan officials grimaced with skepticism. "Sounds too rosy," said Dennis Kelso, Alaska's environmental conservation commissioner. "Look at Exxon's track record till now -- too little, too late, and too many excuses."

Fortunately, nature itself, in fits and starts, seemed to be coming to the rescue. Four days of rain and snowstorms last week helped break up the floating oil and cleanse a number of shores. Moreover, the coming of the long spring and summer thaw is sure to create a rush of rivulets and waterfalls that will help wash off the shoreline. Observed John Robinson, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: "In the end, nature has to do this job."

While cleanup crews battled the slick, the toll on Alaskan wildlife continued to mount. The body count of 458 fallen otters and 2,889 dead birds represented only a fraction of the casualties. Up to 2,000 otters may have perished. More than 33,000 birds may have died in Prince William Sound alone. To save the 6.5 million sandpipers and 10 million other shorebirds starting to migrate through the region, wildlife experts are trying to scare them away from their favorite stopping-off sites. The naturalists have set up big-barreled propane-powered cannons that are timed to go off noisily at regular intervals. They even erected 37 scarecrows dressed in Salvation Army clothing.

The impact on fishing has been crippling. After tests showed possible contamination, Alaskan authorities canceled the fishing seasons for herring, herring roe and pot shrimp throughout Prince William Sound. The salmon season, due to start in mid-May, remains in doubt. "Sure, Exxon may pay in the end," fumed Sandy Cesarini, co-owner of the Sea Hawk Seafood Co. in Valdez. "But we sweated blood to build this place. What about the future? Everyone in the sound feels violated."

The long-term effect on fish and other wildlife is difficult to gauge. Nobody knows how much oil may be sinking to the seabed, for instance. One hopeful note was sounded by the National Marine Fisheries Service in Juneau. Tests showed that salmon eggs and crab larvae, at least, may have escaped contamination because the oil became diluted and degraded to nontoxic levels before those organisms were exposed to it.