History Made Every Day™

HISTORY OF ALASKA

Alaska the last Fontier

The name Alaska comes from an Aleut word, "alyeska," meaning "great land," a fitting description today for a vast place rich in natural resources. Encompassing approximately 615,230 square miles of land and water, the state of Alaska is bigger than all but 17 countries on earth.* Alaska is home to the highest mountain in North America (Denali), the largest U.S. national park (Wrangell-St. Elias), the most active volcanoes in America and what's believed to be one of the country's biggest untapped supplies of oil. But Alaska is short on one thing: people. With just under 677,000 citizens as of 2007, there are fewer people per square mile in Alaska than in any other state. However, what they lack in numbers, Alaskans have made up for throughout their history with a special brand of toughness and adventurousness that has enabled them to succeed in a place nicknamed "The Last Frontier."

It's estimated that Alaska's first human inhabitants migrated from Asia between 40,000 and 15,000 years ago, likely following ice-age mammals over the Bering Land Bridge from Siberia or sailing along the shorelines. Among the native groups that eventually established themselves in the region were the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian in Southeast Alaska; the Athabascans in the interior; the Inupiaqs on the north coast and the Yupiks in the Southwest; and the Aleuts of the Aleutian Islands. In 2004, Native Alaskans comprised 12.9% of the state's population.

Host Geo Beach on a boat near Haencke-Island.

In 1725, Russia's Czar Peter the Great commissioned Danish sailor Vitus Bering to lead an expedition to the North Pacific. In 1741, the Bering party became the first Europeans to see present-day Alaska. Four decades later, in 1784, Russian fur trader Grigori Shelikhov founded Alaska's first permanent non-Native settlement, at Kodiak. Alaska's first permanent English-speaking settlement was established in 1847 at Fort Yukon by Britain's Hudson Bay Company.

In 1867, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. At the time, the deal was ridiculed by some Americans as a waste of money and labeled "Seward's Folly," after U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward, who had pushed for the deal. (Today, October 18 is an annual state holiday in Alaska, commemorating the formal transfer of the territory and the raising of the American flag at Sitka on October 18, 1867.) Initially, the U.S. government asserted little control over affairs in Alaska. In fact, in 1877, a single customs official in Sitka was responsible "for governing Alaska's half million square miles and 40,000 residents," according to the state's official Web site.

Alaska stepped into the spotlight in 1880, after a major discovery of gold near present-day Juneau. A frenzied gold rush period followed, drawing thousands of prospectors and settlers to such places as Klondike in 1897 and Nome in 1898. Alaska's commercial fishing industry also began during this time and by 1900 there were over 50 salmon canneries in business between Ketchikan and Bristol Bay, according to the state's Web site. The frenetic pace of development and perceived sense of lawlessness accompanying it led to the establishment of laws and a court system in 1900, followed by territory status for Alaska in 1912.

Due to its strategic location, during World War II Alaska experienced another important period of development, which included the construction of U.S. military bases as well as the 1,500-mile Alaska Highway linking Anchorage to the lower 48 states. In 1942, Japan invaded the Aleutian Islands, in what was the first occupation of U.S. territory since the War of 1812. Following World War II, many service people remained in Alaska, contributing to the region's growth. On January 3, 1959, Alaska became the 49th U.S. state.

Fallen Timber

Oil and gas development sparked Alaska's next growth spurt, beginning in 1957 with the state's first major discovery of oil, at Swanson River in Kenai. In 1968, the largest oil field in North America was discovered at Prudhoe Bay. In 1974, construction began on the nearly 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which connected Prudhoe Bay to the port of Valdez. The project was finally completed in 1977 with a total workforce of 70,000 and a final price tag of $8 billion. Soaring oil revenues enabled Alaska to repeal the personal income tax in 1980.

Today, oil remains central to Alaska's economy, along with commercial fishing and fish processing, mining and lumber. Tourism is also a vital industry: In the summer of 2007 alone, an estimated 1.7 million visitors ventured into America's Last Frontier.

*Source: Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land by Walter R. Borneman