Alaska

On January 3, 1959, Alaska was admitted to the United States as the 49th state. The population of the state is 626,932, as of 2000. The name "Alaska" is most likely derived from the Aleut word for "great country" or "mainland."

History

Alaska was probably first settled by peoples who came there across the Bering Land Bridge, including Inuit and a variety of Native American groups. Most if not all of the pre-Columbian population of the Americas took this route, but continued further south and east.

The first written accounts indicate that the first Europeans to reach Alaska came from Russia. Vitus Bering sailed east and saw Mt. St. Elias. The Russian-American Company hunted otters for their fur. The colony was never very profitable, because of the costs of transportation.

At the instigation of U.S. Secretary of State William Seward, the United States Senate approved the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000 on April 9th, 1867, and the United States flag was raised on October 18th of that same year (now called Alaska Day). The purchase was not popular in the continental United States, where Alaska became known as "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox". Alaska celebrates the purchase each year on the last Monday of March, calling it Seward's Day.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Alaska Statehood Act into United States law on July 7, 1958 which paved the way for Alaska's admission into the Union.

In 1976, the people of Alaska amended the state's constitution, establishing the Alaska Permanent Fund. The fund invests a portion of the state's mineral revenue, including revenue from the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline System, to benefit all generations of Alaskans. As of June 2003, the fund's value was over $24 billion.

Over the years various vessels have been named the USS Alaska, in honor of the state.

Law and government

The capital of Alaska is Juneau and the current governor of Alaska is Frank H. Murkowski (Republican). Alaska's two U.S. senators are Lisa Murkowski (Republican) and Ted Stevens (Republican).

Geography

Alaska is the only state that is both in North America and not part of the 48 contiguous states. Alaska is the largest state in the United States in terms of land area, 615,230 square miles. If you superimposed Alaska on the Lower 48, Alaska would stretch from Minnesota to Texas, and from Georgia to California.

One scheme for describing the state's geography is by labeling the regions:

South Central Alaska is the southern coastal region with towns, cities, and petroleum industrial plants;
the Alaska Panhandle is home to towns, tidewater glaciers and extensive forests;
the Alaska Interior has big rivers, such as the Yukon River and the Kuskowim River, as well as Arctic tundra lands and shorelines; and
the Alaskan Bush is the remote, uncrowded part of the state.

Alaska, with its numerous islands, has nearly 34,000 miles of coastline. The island chain extending west from the southern tip of Alaska is called the Aleutian Islands. Unimak Island in the Aleutians is home to Mt. Shishaldin, a moderately active volcano that rises to 9,980ft/3,042m above sea level.

Much of Alaska is managed by the federal government as national forests, national parks, and national wildlife refuges. There are places in Alaska that are general public lands (BLM land) but they are arguably more spectacular than many national parks in the Lower 48. Many of Alaska's state parks would be national parks if they were in other states.

Many acres of Alaska are managed by corporations called ANCSA corporations, of which there are thirteen regional ones and dozens of local ones.

The Last Frontier
State Bird:	Willow Ptarmigan
State Mammal:	Moose
State Capital:	Juneau
State Flower:	Forget Me Not (Myosotis alpestris)
State Motto:	"North To The Future"
State Song:	"Alaska's Flag"
State Tree:	Sitka Spruce

Boroughs and census areas

Alaska has no counties in the sense used in the rest of the country; however, the state is divided into 27 census areas and boroughs.

The difference between boroughs and census areas is that boroughs have an organized area-wide government, while census areas are artificial divisions defined by the United States Census Bureau.

Economy

The state's 1999 total gross state product was $26 billion, placing it 46^th in the nation. Its per-capita Income for 2000 was $30,064, 15^th in the nation. Alaska's main agriculture output is seafood, although nursery stock, dairy products, vegetables, and livestock are produced and used internally. Manufacturing is limited, with most foodstuffs and general goods imported from elsewhere. Employment is primarily in government and industries such as natural resource extraction, shipping, and transportation. There is also a small but growing service and tourism sector. Its industrial outputs are crude petroleum, natural gas, coal, gold, precious metals, zinc and other mining, seafood processing, timber and wood products.

Alaska has various transportation options. Some of Alaska is connected by roads (and sometimes a tunnel) to the highways of Canada and the rest of the United States. These places are "on the road system". Along the Pacific Ocean, many places have freight and passenger service from ocean-going ships. Most places have air service, ranging from jets on tarmac to floatplanes on lakes.

Notable Alaskans

The National Statuary Hall of the United States of America is part of the Capitol in Washington DC. Each state selected distinguished citizens and provided statues. Most states have two. Alaska has one. The statue is of E.L. (Bob) Bartlett (1904-1968) one of the original U. S. senators from Alaska. He was the territorial delegate to the US Congress from 1944 to 1958, and was elected as the first senior US senator in 1958 and re-elected in 1964. There are streets, buildings, and even the first state ferry, named for him.

The first woman elected to statewide office was Fran Ulmer, elected as Lieutenant Governor in 1994.

Novels about Alaska

The T. Coraghessan Boyle novel Drop City (2003, ISBN 0670031720) tells the story of a group of Hippies who relocate to Alaska.

Marcia Simpson (d. 2003) has written three books which describe what it's like to live in a small coastal community in Alaska: Rogue's Yarn (2003, ISBN 0425191982), Crow in Stolen Colors (2000, ISBN 1890208361) and Sound Tracks (2001, ISBN 1890208728).

Important cities and towns

Alaska's most populous city is Anchorage, home of 260,283 people, 225,744 of whom live in the urbanized area. It ranks a distant third in the list of the largest cities by area in the United States. Sitka ranks as the America's largest city by area, followed closely by Juneau. Jacksonville, Florida is the largest city by area in the other 49 states and the fourth largest in the entire country.

More than 10,000 people (urbanized area):

Anchorage
Fairbanks
Eagle River (northeast section of Anchorage)
Juneau
Wasilla
Kodiak
Ketchikan

Alaska

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