Alaska History

For this post, I am going to shamelessly steal from Wikipedia, it is written there much better than I could do.

“The first European contact with Alaska occurred in 1741, when Vitus Bering led an expedition for the Russian Navy aboard the St. Peter. After his crew returned to Russia bearing sea otter pelts judged to be the finest fur in the world, small associations of fur traders began to sail from the shores of Siberia towards the Aleutian Islands.

The first permanent European settlement was founded in 1784, and the Russian-American Company carried out an expanded colonization program during the early to mid-1800s. New Archangel on Kodiak Island was Alaska's first capital, but for a century under both Russia and the U.S. Sitka was the capital. The Russians never fully colonized Alaska, and the colony was never very profitable. William H. Seward, the U.S. Secretary of State, negotiated the Alaskan purchase with the Russians in 1867 for $7.2 million. Alaska was loosely governed by the military initially, and was unofficially a territory of the United States from 1884 on. The photo on above is St. Michael's Cathedral, the Russian Orthadox Church built by the Russians in Sitka.

In the 1890s, gold rushes in Alaska and the nearby Yukon Territory brought thousands of miners and settlers to Alaska. The photo below is Lake Bennett, one of the many access points for gold miners to the Yukon River and the Yukon gold fields.

Alaska was granted official territorial status in 1912. At this time the capital was moved to Juneau.

During World War II, the Aleutian Islands Campaign focused on the three outer Aleutian Islands – Attu, Agattu and Kiska[22] – that were invaded by Japanese troops and occupied between June 1942 and August 1943. Unalaska/Dutch Harbour became a significant base for the U.S. Army Air Corps and Navy submariners.

The U.S. Lend-Lease program involved the flying of American warplanes through Canada to Fairbanks and thence Nome; Soviet pilots took possession of these aircraft, ferrying them to fight the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The construction of military bases contributed to the population growth of some Alaskan cities.

Statehood was approved on July 7, 1958. Alaska was officially proclaimed a state on January 3, 1959.

In 1964, the massive "Good Friday Earthquake" killed 131 people and destroyed several villages, mainly by the resultant tsunamis. It was the third most powerful earthquake in the recorded history of the world, with a moment magnitude of 9.2. It was over one thousand times more powerful than the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. Luckily, the epicenter was in an unpopulated area or thousands more would have been killed.

The 1968 discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay and the 1977 completion of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline led to an oil boom. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in the Prince William Sound, spilling over 11 million gallons of crude oil over 1,100 miles (1,600 km) of coastline. Today, the battle between philosophies of development and conservation is seen in the contentious debate over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” The photo to the left is one site of the pipeline as it winds its way the length of Alaska.

That is a short but sweet version of a very colorful history. When you get to visit Alaska, or live there, visiting places like Sitka or Nome makes so real the history of the state. In Sitka the first Russian Orthodox Church still stands and is a reminder of the Russian influence on the state. I’ve walked along the beaches of Nome where gold was picked up off the beaches the way we look for shells today. I’ve ridden the Whitepass & Yukon narrow gage railway from Skagway to Whitehorse, which is the same trail thousands of gold seekers used to access to the Yukon Territory via Bennett Lake and the Yukon River. And, of course I lived there during the Pipeline Construction and saw the heyday of that boom.

Knowing the history of an area, state, region, whatever, makes the experience of being there so much richer. You understand where the name of roads, parks, cities, rivers, etc. comes from and you understand what makes the long time residents tick. Their fierce independence and resilience is not something you typically see in the lower 48. Oh yes, there are rare instances, but for long time residents of Alaska, it is the stuff of everyday life.