ALASKA

ALASKA. For most of its history as a U.S. possession, Alaska was known as the "last frontier," the last part of the country where would-be pioneers could go to live out the American dream of freedom and self-sufficiency through hard work and ingenuity. But with the rise of environmental consciousness in the 1960s and 1970s, that notion subsided. Alaska became America's "last wilderness," the last place in America with vast stretches of undeveloped, unpopulated land. In 1980 Congress designated 50 million acres of the state as wilderness, doubling the size of the national wilderness system.

Few Americans knew much about the region when the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. Newspaper cartoons ridiculed the purchase as "Seward's Folly," "Icebergia," and "Walrussia." But informed Americans emphasized Alaska's resource potential in furbearers and minerals, and the U.S. Senate approved Secretary of State William H. Seward's purchase treaty in the summer of 1867 by a vote of 37–2.

At that time about thirty thousand indigenous people lived in the region, pursuing traditional subsistence. These people included the Inuit (northern Eskimos) who are culturally related to all Arctic indigenes; Yupik speakers (southern Eskimos) of the Yukon River and Kuskokwim River delta area; Aleut people living in the Aleutian Islands who are related to Alutiq-speaking people on the south shore of the Alaska Peninsula and on Kodiak Island; Dene-speaking Athabaskan Indians who live along the interior rivers; and the Dene-speaking Tlingit and Haida people (Pacific Northwest Coast Indians) of the Southeast Alaska Panhandle (Alexander Archipelago) who are related culturally to the coastal Indians of British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon.

Russian Interest

The Russians were the first outsiders to establish sustained contact with Alaska Native peoples, initially in the Aleutian Islands and later in the southeastern coastal islands. In 1725 Peter the Great commissioned an expedition to search east of Siberia for lands with economic resources useful to the Russian state. The expedition commander Vitus Bering failed to find America on his first attempt in 1728, but returning in 1741 he made a landfall on the Alaskan coast near Cape Suckling. Bering shipwrecked on a North Pacific island on his return voyage and died there on 8 December.

Bering's voyages did not provide a comprehensive picture of the geography of Northwest North America. That would await the third round-the-world voyage of Captain James Cook in 1778. But more than half of Bering's crew survived the shipwreck and returned to Kamchatka bringing pelts of various furbearers, including sea otter. Siberian fur trappers recognized the sea otter as the most valuable pelt in the world at the time, setting off a rush to the Aleutian Islands. Over the next half century, Russian trappers made one hundred individual voyages to the American islands to hunt sea otters, fur seals, and walrus, drawing Alaska's indigenous population into the world mercantilist economy.

American furs and walrus ivory were profitable for private investors who financed the voyages and for the Russian tsarist government, which took 10 percent of each voyage's profit. But the exploitation was costly to Alaska Natives. The Russians relied on Aleut Natives to hunt furbearers and held women and children hostage in the villages while Russian overseers traveled with the hunters. The entire Aleut population was brutalized and decimated by this practice, and new diseases the Russians introduced reduced the Aleut population from twenty thousand to two thousand by 1800.

Ranging relentlessly eastward, Russian trappers in 1759 discovered the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island. In 1784 Grigory Shelekhov established the first permanent Russian post in North America on Kodiak Island. Returning to Russia, Shelekhov attempted to persuade Empress Catherine II to invest in the exploitation of North America, but concerned about Spanish and English interest in the region, she declined.

In 1799, however, Paul III chartered a government sponsored private monopoly, the Russian American Company. Over the next sixty years the company systematically exploited Alaska's resources, primarily furs, returning handsome profits to the stockholders and the government. During the company's first twenty-year charter, Aleksandr Baranov extended Russian activities into the Alexander Archipelago, and in 1824 and 1825 the United States and Britain signed treaties formalizing Russia's occupation there but claiming the area to the south, the Oregon Country, as their own. The 1825 treaty established permanent boundaries for Alaska. In 1812 Baranov also established a Russian agricultural post on the California coast, eighty miles north of San Francisco, but failed in an attempt to establish a similar post in Hawaii in 1815.

Russia did not attempt to establish a new society in North America. The largest number of Russians ever in the colony at one time was 823. They sought only the efficient exploitation of the easily accessible resources. Yet despite the participation of the Russian navy, the company and the government could not keep the enterprise adequately supplied. By midcentury the colony depended on the fiercely independent Tlingit Indians for food. When the Crimean War (1854–1856) demonstrated that Russian America could not be defended, critics began to advocate relinquishing the colony, the profitability of which was becoming a problem.

American Interest

Sale to the United States was the only alternative, as England was Russia's principal European antagonist. In the aftermath of the American Civil War, negotiations proceeded quickly. The United States purchased the colony for $7.2 million. The formal transfer was conducted at Sitka on 18 October 1867, which became a state holiday in Alaska.

Secretary Seward wanted Alaska primarily as a gateway to new markets in Asia for American agricultural and manufactured products. Others recognized Alaska's resource potential. But until those resources were actually discovered and developed, Americans showed little interest in the region. The 1880 census revealed 30,000 Natives and a mere 435 non-Natives. Congress waited to implement legislation organizing the territory until it was warranted by the immigration of more pioneer settlers.

These settlers arrived quickly after 1880, when gold was discovered and investors began development of the Treadwell Mines at Juneau to exploit large lode deposits. By 1884 Treadwell boasted the largest gold stamp mill in North America, prompting Congress to pass the first organic legislation for the region that authorized the appointment of a governor, a judge, and other civil officials. Sitka was named the capital. The act provided for acculturation of Alaska Natives at the direction of a "general agent of education" who was to establish schools in Native villages and in the few white towns.

At the same time the U.S. Army began a systematic reconnaissance of Alaska's interior, which was largely unmapped. Explorations by Henry Allen, William Abercrombie, John Cantwell, George Stoney, J. C. Castner, Edwin Fitch Glenn, and others produced a comprehensive understanding of Alaska's geography and physiography by the end of the century.

By 1890 the census counted over five thousand non-Natives, most in Juneau, Sitka, and Wrangell in the southeastern panhandle. A few hundred non-Native prospector-traders worked along the interior rivers, trapping and trading furs among the Athabaskan Indians. Two hundred ships annually worked the lucrative Bering Sea and Arctic whale fishery and traded with the coastal Inuit.

Prospectors discovered gold on the Forty mile River near the Canadian border in 1886 and on Birch Creek near Fort Yukon in 1891, generating increasing interest in Alaska's mineral prospects. In 1896 George Carmacks and his Indian companions discovered placer deposits of unprecedented extent on tributaries of the Klondike River in the Yukon Territory, setting off the gold rush of 1897–1898. Forty thousand argonauts crossed the mountain passes from the tidewater to the upper Yukon River en route to the gold fields. The rush was short-lived but intense. Four thousand people found gold, but only four hundred found it in quantities that might be considered a "fortune."

Many gold trekkers continued into Alaska and searched virtually every river system for minerals. Gold was found in the creeks of the Seward Peninsula in the fall of 1898, sparking a major rush there and the founding of Nome. Another find in the Tanana River drainage in 1902 led to the founding of Fairbanks. Other discoveries generated minor rushes in a score of places, but most played out quickly. New settlers established a large number of small communities, however, and the 1900 census showed thirty thousand non-Natives in the territory, a figure that stayed virtually the same until 1940.

Although Alaskan gold production peaked in 1906, the federal government adopted substantial legislation in response to the gold rush to nurture economic development and to sustain new settlement, including construction of a telegraph line that connected the territory to Seattle, a system of license fees to generate territorial government revenue, civil and criminal legal codes, and a federally owned and operated railroad, the last a unique feature of government support of western settlement. In 1906 Congress authorized the biennial election of a nonvoting territorial delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives and in 1914 a bicameral territorial legislature. At the same time Progressive Era conservation consciousness led to a number of federal conservation withdrawals, including the Tongass National Forest in 1905, the Chugach National Forest in 1907, Mount McKinley National Park in 1917, Katmai National Park in 1918, and Glacier Bay National Park in 1925.

The gold rush and government support also attracted corporate investors interested in developing Alaska's natural resources. By 1890 thirty-seven Pacific salmon canneries operated in Alaska, and by the end of the century more than twice that number operated. The invention of the fish trap, a system of surface to seafloor netting that led fish to a central enclosure, made fishing extremely efficient and produced high profits. By the 1920s moderate taxation of the salmon industry supplied three-fourths of territorial revenue.

The Guggenheim mining family also became interested in Alaska and early in the twentieth century developed a plan to coordinate development of gold, copper, coal, and oil deposits. Drawing the financier J. P. Morgan into a partnership, they created the Alaska Syndicate, which owned the Alaska Steamship Company; built, owned, and operated the Copper River and Northwestern Railway from Cordova at the tidewater to the Wrangell Mountains; owned the Kennecott Copper Mines; and developed oil deposits at Katalla. Their plans to develop coal deposits near Katalla were stopped when President Theodore Roosevelt closed access to Alaska coal lands in 1906 as a strategic measure. Deprived of the cheap, local source of coal, the syndicate scrapped plans to build their railroad to the Yukon River to link it to the internal river system. Having extracted $300 million worth of copper by 1939, the syndicate attempted to sell the railway to the federal government, but when negotiations collapsed, the partners dismantled the road and transferred the rails and rolling stock to operations in Arizona and Utah.

Aviation had a significant impact on Alaska and from the formation of the first companies in the mid-1920s developed rapidly. Perhaps more than in any other part of the country, the airplane in roadless Alaska permitted access to otherwise inaccessible areas, provided hope in times of medical emergency, and greatly speeded mail delivery. Bush pilots quickly became genuine heroes wherever in the territory they flew.

Federal aid helped Alaska weather the Great Depression. Public Works Administration (PWA) and the Civil Works Administration (CWA) loans for heavy public construction projects provided jobs, as did Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps in every section of the territory. Also Native leaders worked with the federal government to extend the Indian Reorganization Act to Alaska in 1936 and to authorize a broad land claims suit by the Tlingit and Haida Indians in 1935. In an unusual rural rehabilitation project, two hundred families from the upper Midwest were transported to the Matanuska Valley near Anchorage in 1935 to start farms. But the experiment failed, for construction jobs created by the remilitarization of Alaska beginning in 1940 promised faster economic advance for the new settlers.

World War II transformed Alaska economically as the government invested $3 billion in three hundred new military installations in the territory. The military personnel in the territory numbered 300,000, five times the 1940 population. Attempting to divert American Pacific forces away from Midway Island in June 1942, Japanese forces captured two Aleutian Islands. In a dramatic battle on American soil in May 1943, a combined American and Canadian force of fourteen thousand retook Attu Island, suffering five hundred killed and nine hundred wounded. The Japanese abandoned Kiska before the American invasion there.

Alaska gained population quickly during World War II. Afterward Cold War strategic defenses in the territory included airfields for long-range bombers and the Distant Early Warning radar net across the Arctic. The Atomic Energy Commission used Amchitka Island in the Aleutians for large-scale nuclear tests and contemplated using nuclear explosions to create a new harbor on Alaska's Arctic coast. Federal spending became the basis of the regional economy that supported a still-expanding population.

Statehood

Shortly after the war territorial leaders began a campaign to achieve statehood for Alaska. They were opposed by the canned salmon industry, which feared additional regulation and taxation. In addition the U.S. military was unenthusiastic because of the increased bureaucracy. But territorial leaders conducted an aggressive, national campaign based on the moral right of all American citizens to have all the rights of other citizens, and following a convention in 1955–1956, they presented Congress with a progressive, uncomplicated state constitution. When polls showed Americans overwhelmingly in support of

Alaskan statehood in 1958, Congress passed the enabling act. Statehood became official on 3 January 1959.

The statehood act entitled the new state to select 104 million acres of unoccupied, unreserved land from Alaska's 375 million acres. Federal reserves already claimed 54 million acres. But the act also prohibited the state from selecting any land that might be subject to Native title. The United States had never executed any Native treaties in Alaska, and the question of Native land title had not been settled. When the state began to select its land, Native groups protested the selections. By 1965, despite Native protests, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had transferred 12 million acres to the state, including, fortuitously as it developed, land at Prudhoe Bay on the North (Arctic) Slope. By then, however, Native claims blanketed the entire state. Secretary of the Interior Steward Udall halted all further transfers to the state until Native land claims could be sorted out.

That process had just begun when, in December 1967, Richfield Oil Company discovered North America's largest oil field at Prudhoe Bay. A 789–mile hot oil pipeline would be necessary to transport the oil from the Arctic Coast to Prince William Sound, crossing many miles of land that eventually was titled to Natives. Natives worked with state and industry leaders and the U.S. Congress to craft the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971. By that act Natives obtained title to 44 million acres of traditionally utilized land, and the United States paid $962.5 million in compensation for extinguishments of Native title to Alaska's remaining 331 million acres. In an unprecedented provision, the money was used to capitalize profit-making Native regional and village economic development corporations. All Alaska Natives became stockholders in one or another of the corporations. Natives would thereby earn stock dividends from their corporations in perpetuity.

The act transformed the status of Alaska Natives, making their corporations an immediate major economic factor in Alaska. Despite early difficulties, most corporations were able to pay stock dividends by the 1990s. Natives adapted well to the roles of corporation leaders and stockholders, though lack of economic sustainability threatened the future of many of the remote villages. Of 100,000 Alaska Natives in a state population of 620,000 in 2000, 30,000 were permanent urban residents.

ANCSA did not guarantee construction of the Alaska pipeline, however, because national environmental groups sued to halt the project to preserve Alaska wilderness. When OPEC placed an embargo on oil exports to the United States following the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Congress passed the Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act, and construction began.

The state established a comprehensive tax structure for oil production, and by the 1980s oil taxes produced 85 percent of public state revenue. By the 1990s most public sector material infrastructure in the state had been paid for by oil taxation. So dependent was the state on oil money that a contraction of the price per barrel from $40 in 1981 to $15 in 1986 eliminated thousands of jobs and led to the outmigration of 600,000 residents from the state in 1985 and 1986.

In 1976 Alaska voters approved the creation of a publicly owned state investment fund, the Alaska Permanent Fund, made up of 10 percent of all state oil revenue. In 1982 the state legislature mandated that about half of the earnings on the fund be paid per capita annually to all state residents. In 2000 the dividend payment was near $2,000 for each Alaska citizen.

Reflecting the raised environmental consciousness in the United States, ANCSA also included a provision for Congress to establish new federal conservation units in Alaska within eight years. Fearing the loss of opportunities for economic development, state leaders and residents opposed the provision, but Congress proceeded. The battle over the Alaska lands act was bitter and protracted, but in 1980 Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which reserved 104 additional Alaska acres in new conservation units, half of which were designated wilderness. Natives were guaranteed access to traditional subsistence resources across the new conservation areas. Mount McKinley Park was renamed Denali National Park.

Americans' new embrace of wilderness values generated both horror and anger when the fully loaded oil tanker Exxon Valdez went aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound in March 1989, spilling 10.8 million gallons of oil in an area considered pristine wilderness. Thousands of seabirds and uncounted fish died, along with lesser numbers of seals, sea otters, and other bird and animal species, including killer whales. Native villagers in the sound feared the contamination of subsistence resources. Exxon Corporation spent three summers cleaning up the spill at a cost of $2 billion, and the corporation was fined $1 billion by the state and federal governments.

Alaska mirrors a long-standing debate in the United States over the proper balance between natural resource extraction and resource preservation. The coastal plain of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is presumed to contain significant oil deposits, which most Alaskans wish to see developed. But the area is considered wilderness by most Americans. The future of the refuge rests with Congress, where at the twentieth century's end vigorous debate continued.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gibson, James R. Otter Skins, Boston Ships, and China Goods: The Maritime Fur Trade of the Northwest Coast, 1785–1841. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992.

Haycox, Stephen. Alaska—An American Colony. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002.

———. Frigid Embrace: Politics, Economics and Environment in Alaska. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2002.

———, and Mary Mangusso, eds. An Alaska Anthology: Interpreting the Past. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996.

Kollin, Susan. Nature's State: Imagining Alaska as the Last Frontier. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Mitchell, Donald Craig. Sold American: The Story of Alaska Natives and Their Land, 1867–1959. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1997; Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2000.

Sherwood, Morgan. Exploration of Alaska, 1865–1900. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1965; Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 1992.

StephenHaycox

See alsoExplorations and Expeditions: Russian ; Fur Trade and Trapping ; Klondike Rush ; Oil Fields ; Petroleum Industry ; Russia, Relations with ; Tribes: Alaskan ; Yukon Region .

Alaska , largest in area of the United States but third smallest (exceeding only Vermont and Wyoming) in population, occupying the northwest extremity of the North American continent, separated from the coterminous United States by W Canada. It is bordered by Yukon and British Columbia (E), the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean (S), the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, and Chukchi Sea (W), and the Beaufort Sea and the Arctic Ocean (N).

Facts and Figures

Area, 656,424 sq mi (1,700,135 sq km), including 86,051 sq mi (222,871 sq km) of water surface. Pop. (2000) 628,932, a 14% increase since the 1990 census. Capital, Juneau. Largest city, Anchorage. Statehood, Jan. 3, 1959 (49th state). Highest pt., Mt. McKinley, 20,320 ft (6,198 m); lowest pt., sea level. Motto, North to the Future. State bird, willow ptarmigan. State flower, forget-me-not. State tree, Sitka spruce. Abbr., AK

Land and People

Nearly one fifth the size of the rest of the United States, Alaska is, at the tip of the Seward Peninsula in the northwest, only a few miles from the Russian Far East; the two are separated by the narrow Bering Strait. The Seward Peninsula, chiefly tundra covered, is sparsely inhabited. The Bering Strait widens in the north to the Chukchi Sea, which slices into Alaska with Kotzebue Sound; in the south the strait widens to the Bering Sea, which cuts into Alaska with Norton Sound and Bristol Bay.

Toward the south the state again extends toward Russia in the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands , reaching a total of 1,200 mi (1,931 km) toward the Komandorski Islands; together they divide the Bering Sea from the Pacific. The Aleutian Range, which is the spine of the Alaska Peninsula, is continued in the grass-covered, treeless Aleutian Islands; the climate there is unremittingly harsh—foggy, damp, and cold in the winter and subject to violent winds (williwaws). Once traversed by Russian fur traders hunting sea otters, the Aleutians are now chiefly of strategic importance. They contain several active volcanoes.

The southern coast of Alaska is deeply indented by two inlets of the wide Gulf of Alaska, Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound ; the Kenai Peninsula between them extends southwest toward Kodiak Island . The narrow Panhandle dips southeast along the coast from the Gulf of Alaska, cutting into British Columbia. It consists of the offshore islands of the Alexander Archipelago and the narrow coast, which rises steeply to the peaks of the Coast Range and the Saint Elias Mts . Winters in the Panhandle are relatively mild, with heavy rainfall and, except on the upper slopes of the mountains, comparatively little snow.

The interior of Alaska, on the other hand, has very cold winters and short, hot summers. In Arctic Alaska, north of the Brooks Range , the temperature in winter reaches -10°F to -40°F (-23.3°C to -40°C). The land there is mostly barren, cut by many short rivers and one long one, the Colville . Alaska's major river is the Yukon , which crosses the state from east to west for 1,200 mi (1,931 km), from the Canadian border to the Bering Sea. The northernmost reach of Alaska is Point Barrow .

Alaska's climate and terrain (rough coast and high mountain ranges) divide it into relatively isolated regions, and transportation relies heavily on costly airlines. The Panhandle is the most populous region; Juneau , the state's capital and third largest city, is there. The Panhandle's connection with Seattle is by ships, which ply the Inside Passage between the coast and the offshore islands. In S central Alaska, Anchorage , the state's largest city, is the center for the Alaskan RR and for airways; it is also connected with the Alaska Highway . On the Seward Peninsula and Norton Sound, Nome , founded when gold was discovered (1898) in the sands of local beaches, is now a small, isolated settlement. Southern ports including Seward , Anchorage, and Valdez are linked by highway with Fairbanks , the state's second largest (and largest interior) city. Cordova and Kodiak depend upon the ocean lanes. On the North Slope, the entire Arctic coast is icebound most of the year, and the ground remains permanently frozen.

The state abounds in natural wonders. In the Panhandle, the scenic beauty of the mountains and the rugged fjord-indented coast are augmented by such attractions as the Malaspina glacier and the acres of blue ice in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve . In the Alaska Range of S central Alaska stands the highest point in North America, Mt. McKinley (Denali) in Denali National Park and Preserve . The Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands have numerous volcanoes; Katmai National Park and Preserve contains the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, scene of a volcanic eruption in 1912.

In the mid-1990s slightly over three quarters of the state's population was white and some 15% was Native American (largely Eskimo and Aleut ).

Economy

Alaska has very little agriculture, ranking last in the nation in number of farms and value of farm products. The state's best arable land is in its S central region, in the Matanuska Valley N of Anchorage and the Tanana Valley (around Fairbanks). The state's most valuable farm commodities are greenhouse and dairy products and potatoes.

Alaska leads the nation in the value of its commercial fishing catch—chiefly salmon, crab, shrimp, halibut, herring, and cod. Anchorage and Dutch Harbor are major fishing ports, and the freezing and canning of fish dominates the food-processing industry, the state's largest manufacturing enterprise. Lumbering and related industries are of great importance, although disputes over logging in the state's great national forests are ongoing. Mining, principally of petroleum and natural gas, is the state's most valuable industry. Gold, which led to settlement at the end of the 19th cent., is no longer mined in quantity. Fur-trapping, Alaska's oldest industry, endures; pelts are obtained from a great variety of animals. The Pribilof Islands are especially noted as a source of sealskins (the seals there are owned by the U.S. government, and their use is carefully regulated).

In 1968 vast reserves of oil and natural gas were discovered on the Alaska North Slope near Prudhoe Bay . The petroleum reservoir was determined to be twice the size of any other field in North America. The 800-mi (1,287-km) Trans-Alaska pipeline from the North Slope to the ice-free port of Valdez opened in 1977, after bitter opposition from environmentalists, and oil began to dominate the state economy. The Alaska Permanent Fund, created in 1977, receives 25% of Alaska's oil royalty income. The fund is designed to provide the state with income after the oil reserves are depleted and has paid dividends to all residents.

Government—federal, state, and local—is Alaska's major source of employment. The state's strategic location has generated considerable defense activity since World War II, including the establishment of highways, airfields, and permanent military bases. Alaska's tourism increased dramatically with the help of improvements in transportation; it now follows only oil among the state's industries. The Inside Passage, Denali National Park, and the 1000-mi (1,600 km) Iditarod sled-dog race are major attractions.

Government, Politics, and Higher Education

Alaska operates under a constitution drawn up and ratified in 1956 (effective with statehood). Its executive branch is headed by a governor and a secretary of state, both elected (on the same ticket) for four-year terms. Alaska's bicameral legislature has a senate with 20 members and a house of representatives with 40 members. The state sends two senators and one representative to the U.S. Congress and has three electoral votes.

Democrats at first dominated state politics, but Republicans have gained gradual ascendance since 1966. A Democrat, Tony Knowles, was elected governor in 1994 and reelected in 1998. The GOP recaptured the governorship in 2002 when Frank Murkowski was elected to the office. In 2006 Republican Sarah Palin was elected governor, defeating Murkowski in the primary and Knowles in the general election. She was the first woman to win the governorship. She resigned in 2009 and was succeeded by Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, also a Republican; he was elected to the office in 2010.

Alaska's educational institutions include the Univ. of Alaska, with divisions at Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Juneau; and Alaska Pacific Univ., at Anchorage.

History

Russian Colonization

The disastrous voyage of Vitus Bering and Aleksey Chirikov in 1741 began the march of Russian traders across Siberia. The survivors who returned with sea otter skins started a rush of fur hunters to the Aleutian Islands. Grigori Shelekhov in 1784 founded the first permanent settlement in Alaska on Kodiak Island and sent (1790) to Alaska the man who was to dominate the period of Russian influence there, Aleksandr Baranov . A monopoly was granted to the Russian American Company in 1799, and it was Baranov who directed its Alaskan activities. Baranov extended the Russian trade far down the west coast of North America and even, after several unsuccessful attempts, founded (1812) a settlement in N California.

Rivalry for the northwest coast was strong, and British and American trading vessels began to threaten the Russian monopoly. In 1821 the czar issued a ukase (imperial command) claiming the 51st parallel as the southern boundary of Alaska and warning foreign vessels not to trespass beyond it. British and American protests, the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine , and Russian embroilment elsewhere resulted (1824) in a negotiated settlement of the boundary at lat. 54°40′N (the present southern boundary of Alaska). Russian interests in Alaska gradually declined, and after the Crimean War, Russia sought to dispose of the territory altogether.

Early Years as a U.S. Possession

In 1867, Russia sold Alaska to the United States for $7,200,000. The U.S. purchase was accomplished solely through the determined efforts of Secretary of State William H. Seward , and for many years afterward the land was derisively called Seward's Folly or Seward's Icebox because of its supposed uselessness. Since Alaska appeared to offer no immediate financial return, it was neglected. The U.S. army officially controlled the area until 1876, when scandals caused the withdrawal of the troops. After a brief period, during which government was in the hands of customs officials, the U.S. navy was given charge (1879). Most of the territory was not even known, although the British (notably John Franklin and Capt. F. W. Beechey ) had explored the coast of the Arctic Ocean, and the Hudson's Bay Company had explored the Yukon.

It was not until after the discovery of gold in the Juneau region in 1880 that Alaska was given a governor and a feeble local administration (under the Organic Act of 1884). Missionaries, who had come to the region in the late 1870s, exercised considerable influence. Most influential was Sheldon Jackson , best known for his introduction of reindeer to help the Alaska Eskimo (Inuit), impoverished by the wanton destruction of the fur seals. Sealing was the subject of a long international controversy (see Bering Sea Fur-Seal Controversy under Bering Sea ), which was not ended until after gold had permanently transformed Alaska.

The Gold Rush

Paradoxically, the first gold finds that tremendously influenced Alaska were in Canada. The Klondike strike of 1896 brought a stampede, mainly of Americans, and most of them came through Alaska. The big discoveries in Alaska itself followed—Nome in 1898–99, Fairbanks in 1902. The miners and prospectors (the sourdoughs) took over Alaska, and the era of the mining camps reached its height; a criminal code was belatedly applied in 1899.

The longstanding controversy concerning the boundary between the Alaska Panhandle and British Columbia was aggravated by the large number of miners traveling the Inside Passage to the gold fields. The matter was finally settled in 1903 by a six-man tribunal, composed of American, Canadian, and British representatives. The decision was generally favorable to the United States, and a period of rapid building and development began. Mining, requiring heavy financing, passed into the hands of Eastern capitalists, notably the monopolistic Alaska Syndicate. Opposition to these "interests" became the burning issue in Alaska and was catapulted into national politics; Gifford Pinchot and R. A. Ballinger were the chief antagonists, and this was a major issue on which Theodore Roosevelt split with President William Howard Taft.

Territorial Status

Juneau officially replaced Sitka as capital in 1900, but it did not begin to function as such until 1906. In the same year Alaska was finally awarded a territorial representative in Congress. A new era began for Alaska when local government was established in 1912 and it became a U.S. territory. The building of the Alaska RR from Seward to Fairbanks was commenced with government funds in 1915. Already, however, gold mining was dying out, and Alaska receded into one of its quiet periods. The fishing industry, which had gradually advanced during the gold era, became the major enterprise.

Alaska enjoyed an economic boom during World War II. The Alaska Highway was built, supplying a weak but much-needed link with the United States. After Japanese troops occupied the Aleutian islands of Attu and Kiska, U.S. forces prepared for a counterattack. Attu was retaken in May, 1943, after intense fighting, and the Japanese evacuated Kiska in August after intensive U.S. bombardments. Dutch Harbor became a major key in the U.S. defense system. The growth of air travel after the war, and the permanent military bases established in Alaska resulted in tremendous growth; between 1950 and 1960 the population nearly doubled.

Statehood to the Present

In 1958, Alaskans approved statehood by a 5 to 1 vote, and on Jan. 3, 1959, Alaska was officially admitted into the Union as a state, the first since Arizona in 1912. On Mar. 27, 1964, the strongest earthquake ever recorded in North America occurred in Alaska, taking approximately 114 lives and causing extensive property damage. Some cities were almost totally destroyed, and the fishing industry was especially hard hit, with the loss of fleets, docks, and canneries from the resulting tsunami. Reconstruction, with large-scale federal aid, was rapid. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971) gave roughly 44 million acres (17.8 million hectares; 10% of the state) and almost $1 billion to Alaskan native peoples in exchange for renunciation of all aboriginal claims to land in the state. In 1989 the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, releasing 11 million gallons of oil into the water in the worst oil spill in U.S. history up to that time and severely damaging the ecosystem. A jury in 1994 found Exxon Corp. (now ExxonMobil) and the ship's captain negligent, but the amount of punitive damages ($507.5 million) to be paid to some 33,000 commercial fishermen and other plaintiffs was ultimately fixed by a Supreme Court decision in 2008, which severely reduced the original award ($2.5 billion).

Bibliography

See C. C. Hulley, Alaska, Past and Present (3d ed. 1970); B. Keating, Alaska (2d ed. 1971); H. W. Clark, History of Alaska (1930, repr. 1972); B. Cooper, Alaska, the Last Frontier (1973); Federal Writers' Project, A Guide to Alaska, Last American Frontier (1940, repr. 1973); L. Thomas Jr., Alaska and the Yukon (1983); R. W. Pearson and D. F. Lynch, Alaska: A Geography; J. Strohmeyer, Extreme Conditions: Big Oil and the Transformation of Alaska (1993).

ALASKA

At first, dismissed as a foolish venture, the purchase of Alaska from Russia in the 1870s was little more than a curiosity to most people in the United States. The idea that an ice-ridden territory so far from mainland United States could have any future value to the nation was not widely accepted. But the discovery of gold on the territory, and later oil, put a new light on the possibilities of Alaska. Those willing to brave the Alaska frontier in search of valuable resources eventually established permanent settlements, which formed the basis of what became the 49th state.

Ages after the ancestors of America's aboriginal people crossed a land bridge which then connected northern Siberia with Alaska, Russian explorers came to the area in the 1700s. The first permanent Russian settlement was on Kodiak Island; by the early 1800s, the Russian American Company was given control over the region, with headquarters at Sitka. The Russians had great difficulty with Indian uprisings, the depletion of the sea otter, and changes in the fur trade. Viewing the Alaskan colonies as a drain on their resources, the Russians agreed to sell them to the United States for $7.2 million in 1867. Some U.S. citizens were not at all impressed with Secretary of State William H. Seward's (1801–1872) success in acquiring Alaska, calling it "Seward's folly" or "Seward's icebox." The territory was at first administered by the U.S. Army and then by the U.S. Customs Service.

The economic potential of "Seward's icebox" was first apparent when gold was discovered at Juneau in 1880. After prospectors moved into the eastern interior, they also discovered gold on Forty-Mile River and at Circle. The most important gold strike, however, was in the Klondike region of Canada in 1896; soon a stampede of prospectors was crossing Alaska's Yukon and other regions. They established some of the first permanent towns in the interior.

Still a wild country with few transportation networks, Alaska nonetheless began to develop its considerable fishing and timber resources. These industries benefited when the Alaska Railroad, started in 1914, connected Anchorage and Fairbanks with Seward, a newly created ice-free port. As more and more people moved into Alaska Congress voted to grant it territorial status in 1912.

Gold continued to be mined in the territory though at a slower pace. The population began to decline in the second decade of the century and the territory saw a general state of depression throughout the 1920s. World War II (1939–1945) showed the nation that Alaska, with its proximity to Japan and the Soviet Union, was important strategically. Federal construction and military installations were increased in the territory even after the war.

Development in Alaska was accelerated considerably when the U.S. government built the Alaska Highway, an extension of the Alaska Railroad, and other facilities such as docks and airfields. These wartime and postwar improvements brought many more military personnel and civilians into Alaska. Wanting the same rights as other U.S. citizens, the newcomers pressured Congress to make Alaska a state. In 1959 they succeeded, when Alaska became the 49th state, the first one not contiguous to the lower 48 states.

The use and allocation of lands in Alaska have always been sources of controversy. The 1971 Native Claims Settlement Act provided extensive land grants to aboriginal residents of the state but did not end the controversy over land use and ownership. The discovery of oil in 1968 and in 1974 caused another economic boom in the state but also aroused the anger of environmentalists who feared damage to the state's delicate ecosystem from a proposed Alaska oil pipeline. In 1970 after an oil crisis brought on by Middle East suppliers panicked the U.S. public, much of the opposition melted; the Trans-Alaska Pipeline was built, taking oil from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez and establishing Alaska as one of the leading energy sources for the United States.

The boom created by oil enabled the state to decrease its dependence on the federal government, increase services to its citizens, and abolish the state income tax. Other private industries did not develop as fast as the state had hoped, however. Moreover, since 82 percent of the state's revenue came from oil, Alaska was highly susceptible to the vicissitudes of the oil market. This became evident in the mid-1980s, when Middle East oil overproduction drove Alaska oil prices down from $36.00 to $13.50 a barrel. Alaska lost 20,000 jobs in the four years after 1985, and the state government lost two-thirds of its revenue. At the same time oil reserves in the state were being rapidly depleted.

Further damage to Alaska's oil industry occurred on March 24, 1989, when the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, contaminating 1,285 miles of shoreline, including the sound and its wildlife refuge, the Gulf of Alaska, and the Alaska Peninsula. After a long series of suits by the federal and state governments, Alaska received a $1.025 billion settlement from Exxon. Exxon claims that the Prince William Sound sustained no permanent damage; Alaska's citizens, who maintain there is still visible evidence of oil contamination, are less convinced even after years of cleanup efforts.

A modest economic recovery occurred in the early 1990s, with significant growth in the fishing industry. An important segment of Alaska's economy, the seafood industry accounted for wholesale values of three billion dollars in 1990. Oil and gas production, however, continued to decline, reducing mining jobs by 11 percent in 1992; and by 1997 the decreasing supply of timber caused log exports to decline by 50 percent. During the 1990s Alaska was also engaged in a battle with the federal government over the rights to revenues from mineral leasing on federal land. Despite economic setbacks Alaska still ranked nineteenth among all states in 1996 in per capita personal income. This distinction was offset, however, by a cost of living 25-35 percent higher than the average for the other states.

As oil production declined in Prudhoe Bay in the early 1990s the state government again was forced to cut back state services. The governor of Alaska, Toby Knowles, pressured Congress to open a new area in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration. Again, environmentalists loudly disputed the wisdom of such a move, despite the favorable attitude of the Republican Congress. President Bill Clinton (1993—) said he would veto any such legislation. In 1998 another controversy erupted in Congress over a proposed road over a marshy wilderness from King Cove to an airstrip on Cold Bay. Proponents called it a boon to development; opponents called it a threat to the environment.

Alaska remained highly dependent on its limited network of transportation links at the end of the twentieth century. Though the Alaska Railroad with 480 miles of track was not connected to any other North American line, it was accessible to other rail routes by rail-barge service. Crude oil and other freight from Alaska was shipped mostly from Valdez, Kenai/Nikishka, and Anchorage. The Alaska Marine Highway System provided ferry service to 32 communities in southeast and southwest Alaska. Most of the consumer goods used by Alaskans were shipped from the port of Seattle; though freight costs were still high, they were smaller than by overland routes. The Alaska Highway was the only major road link with the rest of the United States. Other roads within the state were sparse and often unimproved. Many small airports across Alaska accommodated travelers seeking other ways of traversing the state.

See also: Alaska Pipeline, Alaska Purchase, Environmentalism, Exxon Corporation

FURTHER READING

Gruening, Ernest. State of Alaska. New York: Random House, 1968.

Hedin, Robert, and Gary Holthaus, eds. The Great Land: Reflections on Alaska. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1994.

Hunt, William R. Alaska: A Bicentennial History. New York: Norton, 1976.

Naske, Claus M., and Herman E. Slotnick. Alaska: A History of the 49th State, 2nd ed. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma, 1987.

Ryan, Alan, ed. The Reader's Companion to Alaska. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1997.

Alaska. In March 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William Henry Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million, including the property of the Russian American Company. Ridiculed by some as “Seward's Folly” but approved by most, the treaty added to the United States a vast arctic and subarctic subcontinent of grandeur and substantial natural resources. The purchase encompassed 586,412 square miles, one‐fifth the size of the present contiguous United States.

After a period of military government, Congress passed in 1884 the first Organic Act, which made Alaska a judicial district with a severely restricted form of territorial government. Meanwhile, in 1880, Richard T. Harris and Joseph Juneau discovered gold near the present site of Juneau. Soon, Juneau, the first American town in Alaska, developed into a booming mining community. In 1896, George W. Carmack and his Indian companions discovered gold on the Klondike, a tributary of the Yukon River, in Canada's Yukon Territory. The discovery triggered a massive gold rush in 1897 with thousands of men and women converging on the Klondike. Many of those people eventually drifted into Alaska where some discovered gold in various localities. Congress granted Alaska a voteless delegate to Congress in 1906 and six years later, with the second Organic Act, gave Alaska a limited form of territorial government.

By 1940, Alaska's population, dependent on seasonal salmon fishing and mining, stood at approximately 72,000, of whom more than 34,000 were Native peoples. During World War II, the federal government spent more than two billion dollars to fortify Alaska and built the Alaska Highway connecting the territory with the contiguous states. During the war, the Japanese briefly occupied two islands in the Aleutian Chain, Attu and Kiska. By 1950, Alaska's population had reached nearly 130,000.

The statehood movement, launched in 1943, culminated in 1958, when Congress admitted Alaska as the forty‐ninth state. Much of the state's subsequent history has revolved around issues of land and natural resources. To put the new state on a solid economic footing, Congress granted Alaska the right to select more than 100 million acres of land from the vacant, unappropriated, and unreserved public domain and 800,000 acres from the National Forests for community expansion. Soon, state land selections alarmed Alaska's Natives, who claimed much of the lands and resources by ancestral rights. The Tundra Times, founded in 1962 and edited by Howard Rock, an Eskimo artist, championed Native land claims as did the Alaskan Federation of Natives, established in 1966. In 1966, Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall halted all land conveyances in Alaska until the Native land claims were settled.

In 1968, the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) and Humble Oil and Refining Company (now Exxon), prospecting at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope, discovered what proved to be the largest oilfield ever found in North America. In 1969, a consortium of eight oil companies proposed an eight hundred‐mile pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the ice‐free port of Valdez on Prince William Sound. Since the pipeline would cross public domain lands, the oil companies sought a waiver from the land freeze. The new secretary of the interior in the Richard M. Nixon administration, Walter J. Hickel, a promoter of economic development and former governor of Alaska, attempted to lift the land freeze but Congress resisted.

In 1970, five Native villages filed suit, claiming land the proposed pipeline would traverse. After difficult negotiations, Congress in 1971 passed, and the President signed, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). In return for the extinguishment of aboriginal title, including hunting and fishing rights and any pending statutory claims, the Natives received $962.5 million and 40 million acres in fee simple title. Twelve regional corporations and 220 village corporations were to manage this settlement for the Natives and their descendants. The trans‐Alaska pipeline was built, and in June 1977 the first oil flowed southward to Valdez.

In 1980, Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which added 104.3 million acres to conservation systems. As oil revenues soared, Alaska's economy boomed. By 1982, fully 86.5 percent of state revenues came from the petroleum industry. In 1976, Alaskans amended their state constitution to place at least 25 percent of all mineral lease bonuses, royalties, and rentals into a permanent fund, to be used only for “income‐producing investments.” The idea was to convert a part of the state's nonrenewable oil wealth into a renewable source of wealth for future generations. In 1980, the legislature enacted into law the innovative concept of “permanent fund dividends,” to distribute a portion of the earnings of the permanent fund directly to Alaska's citizen shareholders. After several court battles, Alaskan shareholders received their first permanent fund dividend check in 1982. In 1997, with the market value of the Alaskan Permanent Fund standing at $22.1 billion, the dividend checks amounted to $1,296.54. A major oil spill by the tanker Exxon Valdez in 1989 revived the controversy over Alaska's oil industry and its impact on the state.

Heavily dependent on tourism; federal, state, and local government spending; and income from its natural resources (many of them nonrenewable), Alaska in the 1990s faced an uncertain economic future. Once the oil ran out, many feared, the boom‐and‐bust economic cycles would return.
See also Conservation Movement; Federal Government, Executive Branch: Other Departments; Gold Rushes; Indian History and Culture.

Bibliography

Claus‐M. Naske and and Herman E. Slotnick , Alaska: A History of the 49th State, 2d ed., 1987.
Morgan B. Sherwood , Exploration of Alaska, 1865–1900, 1992.
Nikolai N. Bolkhovitnov , Russian‐American Relations and the Sale of Alaska, 1834–1867, trans. and ed. Richard A. Pierce, 1996.

Claus‐M. Naske

ALASKA

Alaska is the largest state in the United States, equal to one-fifth of the country's continental land mass. Situated in the extreme northwestern region of North America, it is separated from Russian Asia by the Bering Strait (51 miles; 82 kilometers). Commonly nicknamed "The Last Frontier" or "Land of the Midnight Sun," the state's official name derives from an Aleut word meaning "great land" or "that which the sea breaks against." Alaska is replete with high-walled fjords and majestic mountains, with slow-moving glaciers and still-active volcanoes. The state is also home to Eskimos and the Aleut and Athabaskan Indians, as well as about fourteen thousand Tlingit, Tshimshian, and Haida

people—comprising about 16 percent of the Alaskan population. (The term Eskimo is used for Alaskan natives, while Inuit is used for Eskimos living in Canada.) Inupiat and Yupik are the two main Eskimo groups. While the Inupiat speak Inupiaq and reside in the north and northwest parts of Alaska, the Yupik speak Yupik and live in the south and southwest. Juneau is the state's capital, but Anchorage is the largest city.

The first Russians to come to the Alaskan mainland and the Aleutian Islands were Alexei Chirikov (a Russian naval captain) and Vitus Bering (a Dane working for the Russians), who arrived in 1741. Tsar Peter the Great (1672–1725) encouraged the explorers, eager to gain the fur trade of Alaska and the markets of China. Hence, for half a century thereafter, intrepid frontiersmen and fur traders (promyshlenniki ) ranged from the Kurile Islands to southeastern Alaska, often exploiting native seafaring skills to mine the rich supply of sea otter and seal pelts for the lucrative China trade. In 1784, one of these brave adventurers, Grigory Shelekhov (1747–1795), established the first colony in Alaska, encouraged by Tsarina Catherine II (the Great) (1729–1796).

Missionaries soon followed the traders, beginning in 1794, aiming to convert souls to Christianity. The beneficial role of the Russian missions in Alaska is only beginning to be fully appreciated. Undoubtedly, some Russian imperialists used the missionary enterprise as an instrument in their own endeavors. However, as recently discovered documents in the U.S. Library of Congress show, the selfless work of some Russian Orthodox priests, such as Metropolitan Innokenty Veniaminov (1797–1879), not only promoted harmonious relations between Russians and Alaskans, but preserved the culture and languages of the Native Alaskans.

Diplomatic relations between Russia and the United States, which began in 1808, were relatively cordial in the early 1800s. They were unhampered by the Monroe Doctrine, which warned that the American continent was no territory for future European colonization. Tsar Alexander I admired the American republic, and agreed in April 1824 to restrict Russia's claims on the America continent to Alaska. American statesmen had attempted several times between 1834 and 1867 to purchase Alaska from Russia. On March 23, 1867, the expansionist-minded Secretary of State William H. Seward met with Russian minister to Washington Baron Edouard de Stoeckl and agreed on a price of $7,200,000. This translated into about 2.5 cents per acre for 586,400 square miles of territory, twice the size of Texas. Overextended geographically, the Russians were happy at the time to release the burden. However, the discovery of gold in 1896 and of the largest oil field in North America (near Prudhoe Bay) in 1968 may have caused second thoughts.

See also: bering, vitus jonassen; dezhnev, semen ivanovich; northern peoples; united states, relations with

bibliography

Bolkhovitinov, N. N., and Pierce, Richard A. (1996). Russian-American Relations and the Sale of Alaska, 1834–1867. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press.

Hoxie, Frederick E., and Mancall, Peter C. (2001). American Nations: Encounters in Indian Country, 1850 to the Present. New York: Routledge.

Thomas, David Hurst. (200). Exploring Native North America. New York: Oxford University Press.

Johanna Granville

ALASKA

Anchorage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Fairbanks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Juneau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

The State in Brief

Nickname: Land of the Midnight Sun

Motto: North to the future

Flower: Forget-me-not

Bird: Willow ptarmigan

Area: 663,267 square miles (2000; U.S. rank: 1st)

Elevation: Ranges from sea level to 20,320 feet above sea level

Climate: Summers are short and hot, winters long and intensely cold

Admitted to Union: January 3, 1959

Capital: Juneau

Head Official: Governor Frank H. Murkowski (R) (until 2006)

Population

1980: 402,000

1990: 570,000

2000: 626,932

2004 estimate: 655,435

Percent change, 1990–2000: 14.0%

U.S. rank in 2004: 47th

Percent of residents born in state: 38.1% (2000)

Density: 1.1 people per square mile (2000)

2002 FBI Crime Index Total: 27,745

Racial and Ethnic Characteristics (2000)

White: 434,534

Black or African American: 21,787

American Indian and Alaska Native: 98,043

Asian: 25,116

Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander: 3,309

Hispanic or Latino (may be of any race): 25,852

Other: 9,997

Age Characteristics (2000)

Population under 5 years old: 47,591

Population 5 to 19 years old: 160,526

Percent of population 65 years and over: 5.7%

Median age: 32.4 years (2000)

Vital Statistics

Total number of births (2003): 10,071

Total number of deaths (2003): 3,158 (infant deaths, 67)

AIDS cases reported through 2003: 271

Economy

Major industries: Oil, government, commercial fishing, food processing, lumber, mining

Unemployment rate: 7.4% (January 2004)

Per capita income: $33,254 (2003; U.S. rank: 14th)

Median household income: $55,143 (3-year average, 2001-2003)

Percentage of persons below poverty level: 9.0% (3-year average, 2001-2003)

Income tax rate: None

Sales tax rate: None

Alaska, USA A state with a name derived from the Aleut (a branch of the Inuit–Aleut family of languages) alakshak ‘mainland’. It was first discovered in 1741 by Vitus Bering^†, a Dane leading an expedition for Peter I the Great^†. The first non‐local settlers in 1784 were Russians. Administered by the Russian American Company from 1799, it was known as Russian America. The region was sold by Alexander II, emperor (1855–81), to the USA in 1867 for $7.2 million when it quickly became known as Seward's Folly; William H. Seward was the American Secretary of State who arranged the purchase. It became the Territory of Alaska in 1912 and finally the 49th state when it joined the Union in 1959.

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