Some History

Alaska was once Russian territory. Shortly after the Civil War, William H. Seward, Secretary of State under President Andrew Johnson, negotiated the purchase of the territory from Czar Alexander for $7,200,000, which works out to something like 2.5 cents per acre. On October 18, 1867, the United States flag replaced the Russian flag in Sitka, and Alaska - sometimes known as "Seward's Icebox" or "Seward's Folly" - became U.S. territory.

Gold and Jack London did a lot to make Alaska famous. Many of London's more famous novels and short stories are set in Alaska and neighboring Yukon Territory, Canada. He went north in the wake of the "Great Klondike Gold Rush" of 1896, and he published Son of the Wolf - a collection of short stories on life in Alaska and the Yukon - in 1900. White Fang and Call of the Wild also came out of his adventures in the gold fields of Alaska and Canada.

While just about every American knows about the Japanese hit-and-run bombing attack on Pearl Harbor, not too many know that Japanese forces actually occupied United States territory in World War II. However, the Japanese did in fact occupy two of Alaska's Aleutian Islands from June, 1942 to May, 1943. My father, a chief petty officer in the Navy, served in the brief 1943 campaign to retake Kiska and Attu, the occupied islands. He had stories and photographs of that campaign, and some of them were fairly grisly.

Japanese action in the Aleutians was one of the major reasons why U.S. servicemen built the fabled Alcan (Alaskan-Canadian) Highway in 1942-43. This road gave the military an overland route to Alaska, should the need arise. It took the soldiers eight months and 12 days to finish the 1,522-mile gravel road from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Fairbanks, Alaska. They accomplished the feat despite occasional winter storms where the temperatures hovered around 40 degrees below zero and once dropped to -79 degrees.

An interesting but little known fact concerning the construction of the Alcan is that one third (3,695) of the 10,670 soldiers who built the highway were members of the Army's Black Corps of Engineers. Most of these men were southerners, and they must have found the cold brutal, but their exemplary performance under severe conditions was one of the reasons why President Truman integrated the armed services during the Korean War. Indeed, the military was the first U.S. government institution to be integrated, in part because of the black engineers of the Alcan.

At one time, the Alcan Highway was the longest all-weather gravel road in the world. It probably still is. It is also the only land route into Alaska and consequently is well traveled by adventurous tourists. I've driven the Alcan twice, and I can assure you of two things. First, it is a breathtakingly beautiful drive. Second, there is no smoother pavement in the world than the first pavement you hit after driving 1,500 miles of gravel road.

Alaska was admitted to the Union as the 49th state on January 3, 1959. However, Alaska still hadn't completed its internal organization by the time I arrived in 1963. This giant state is organized into boroughs, not counties, and some of those were still being incorporated in 1963. I still don't know the difference between a borough and a county … or how either differs from a parish, for that matter. You will occasionally see references to Alaskan counties, but these are not correct. I suspect, though, that reporters and writers use the term "county" to make sure the general public knows what they are talking about. Most people are probably like me and have no idea what a borough really is.

When I arrived in Alaska in the summer of 1963, I fell in love with it. I'm sure one major factor was simply that I was in the last great wilderness in the United States. In 1963, Alaska, which is more than twice the size of Texas, had half the population of Fort Worth. That startling fact entranced me then, and I have never lost my sense of wonder, not even after 38 years. "Civilization" still occupies far less than 1% of Alaska's 365 million acres; the rest is untouched wilderness. (The Alaskan population grew from 570,000 in 1991 to 606,000 in 1994 - and thus finally exceeded one person per square mile.) I could, and did on several occasions, go a few miles outside Anchorage or Fairbanks and just walk around, knowing I might well be the first person ever to step where I stepped.

The Land of Extremes

Alaska is a land of extremes. It is by far the largest state in the Union. Alaska's 586,412 square miles represent approximately 16% of the total area of the United States. At its widest, Alaska extends 2,400 miles, or roughly the distance from Denver to Mexico City. From north to south, Alaska spans 1,420 miles.

The Red Dog Mine in northwest Alaska is the world's largest producer of zinc.

Lake Hood, in Anchorage, is the world's largest and busiest seaplane base, recording as many as 1200 take-offs and landings in a single day.

Alaska's Kodiak Island (3,599 square miles) is home to the largest land carnivores on earth, the famed Kodiak brown bears.

Alaska is also home to the world's largest bald eagle population. As many as 4,000 of these beautiful birds gather at the Chilkat River in the fall to feed on late-running salmon, and that gathering is a magnificent sight.

Alaska's Wood-Tikchik State Park, 1.6 million acres of wilderness, is the largest state park in the United States. (Rhode Island and Delaware combined comprise 1.9 million acres.)

Mount McKinley, standing 20,320 feet high in central Alaska, is North America's highest point.

Alaska has the only state capital that you cannot reach by car. Juneau is accessible only by airplane or boat or, for the truly intrepid, by foot.

Alaska has more than 3,000 rivers and some 3,000,000 (yes, three million) lakes. The Yukon River is the third longest river in the U.S., behind the Mississippi and the Missouri. It flows out of Canada and travels 1,875 miles across Alaska to the Bering Sea.

Alaska largest lake, Iliamna, covers 1,150 square miles, or just a bit more than the land area of Rhode Island. It is also, supposedly, the home of a Loch Ness-like monster. Some say this so-called "Nessie of the North" is a gigantic trout.

In the winter of 1952-1953, Thompson Pass, just north of Valdez, received 974.5 inches - that is, just over 81 feet - of snow. In 1971, the temperature at Prospect Creek Camp was measured at -80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Just a note on weather that cold. I did this in Fairbanks, at only 40 below zero, because I had heard that you could: I put a saucepan of water on the stove and brought it to a boil, took the pan three steps to the back door, and threw the water out into the back yard. It made a strange and surprisingly loud hissing sound and fell to the ground as fine granules of ice.

Barrow, Alaska, located just 800 miles from the North Pole, is one of the coldest places in the United States. While Barrow has continuous sunlight (except for the occasional overcast) from May 10 to August 2 each year, the town never sees the sun from November 18 to January 24.

Quake Country

Alaska is also earthquake country. According to the U. S. Geological Survey, Alaskan earthquakes released 25% of the total energy released worldwide by earthquakes in the 20th century. Alaska experiences approximately 5,000 earthquakes per year.

The most powerful earthquake in North American history struck Anchorage and the south-central Alaskan coast in the late afternoon of March 27, 1964, which was a Good Friday. The quake measured 9.2 on the Richter Scale and was the second strongest earthquake ever recorded anywhere. Fortunately, we had no school on Good Friday. The second story of the West Anchorage High School building collapsed completely. I went over to West High a few days after the quake, and what had been a two-story school looked like a one-story building with trash on the roof. It's chilling to think what would have happened if students had been in the building that afternoon, for club meetings or other after school activities.

Immediately after the earthquake, I took my dad's camera - an Exacta SLR - and walked into town. There were no barriers erected yet, and I shot perhaps four, 36-exposure rolls of slide film of the damage to Anchorage, getting some excellent close-up shots. Sadly, all but a meager handful of those slides have been lost or destroyed over the years.

Fairly soon after my photo tour, the commander of Ft. Richardson, the nearby Army base, provided troops to guard downtown Anchorage. Someone -- the Army, perhaps -- put up snow fencing around areas of the city, and soldiers were posted at intervals along those barriers. The rumor at the time was that these soldiers were under orders to shoot looters. Whether they were or not, I recall news reports that there was no looting in Anchorage in the aftermath of the earthquake.

One slightly useful piece of information I still retain from the post-quake days is that a tablespoon of Clorox or other chlorine bleach in a five-gallon can of water will make the water safe to drink, if not especially tasty. (I was a senior in high school at the time, and my class made up joke names for quake-related things, including the drink "Clorox on the Rocks". We also came up with the song titles, "Standing on the Corner, Watching All the Streets Go By" and "How Much Is That Sidewalk In the Window?")