ALASKA

October 18 has officially been designated as Alaska Day, so this week Tidbits is taking the opportunity to bring you some facts about our 49th state -- some of which we'll bet you never knew. So grab your warm woolies and bear spray and follow along.

ALASKAN HISTORY

• Alaska was first sighted by non-natives in 1741 when Danish explorer Vitus Bering and his crew spotted it during an expedition voyage from Siberia. In the decades to follow, Russian hunters began sailing the short 55 mile trip from the Russian mainland to trap its abundant fur-bearing wildlife. The first substantial Russian colony, named Three Saints Bay, was founded on Kodiak Island in 1784. It was destroyed by a tsunami four years later, but was rebuilt in 1790. Before long, the area was populated by several companies of fur traders.

• When the Russians arrived in Alaska in the mid-1700s, the indigenous inhabitants numbered about 80,000. Today, these tribes comprise 15 percent of the state’s 650,000 population, or about 97,500 people. There are 224 recognized tribes in Alaska, speaking 20 different indigenous languages. The five major groups of tribes are Aleuts, Inupiat, Yuit, Athabascans, and Tlingit.

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• Alaska remained under Russian rule until 1867, when the czarist government approached the United States with a proposal to sell the territory to America. In March of that year, U.S. Secretary of State William Seward signed the papers for the purchase of Alaska for $7.2 million, a mere two cents per acre.

• Most of Congress viewed the purchase as a waste of money, and the treaty, mocked as “Seward’s Folly,” was passed by the Senate by just one vote. Formal transfer of the territory took place at Sitka on October 18, 1867.

• The new possession wasn’t of much interest at all until 1897, when gold was discovered in the Klondike by Joe Juneau and Richard Harris, near the present-day state capital city, Juneau.

GEOGRAPHY

• The name Alaska has its origins in the Aleut language, with “Alyeska” translating “great land.”

• Alaska is home to 17 of the 20 highest peaks in the United States. The highest, Denali, meaning “The Great One,” stands 20,320 feet above sea level, the highest mountain in North America. A gold prospector and explorer named Frank Densmore spread the word about the enormous peak during his travels in the late 1800s, and prospectors in the Yukon began calling the mountain “Densmore Peak.”

• In 1897, another prospector, William Dickey, a great admirer of then-President-elect William McKinley referred to the peak as Mt. McKinley in a New York City newspaper article. The name later gained wide acceptance after the president’s assassination in 1901. It was further established when the entire area was officially named Mt. McKinley National Park in legislation in February, 1917.

• A heated decades-long debate ensued, with many groups wanting the mountain’s title returned to its native name, Denali. In 1975, the State of Alaska petitioned to have it changed officially. However, that effort was stalled for decades by the Ohio congressional delegation who represented President McKinley’s home state. In 1980, the park was renamed Denali National Park, however, the highest peak remained Mt. McKinley until 2015, when it was officially changed to Denali.

• Alaska has more than three million lakes and over 100,000 glaciers. Five percent of the state is covered by glaciers. You might be surprised to know that despite its vast amount of woodlands, Alaska has no trace of poison ivy or poison oak!

• North America’s largest oil field, Prudhoe Bay, lies 650 miles north of Anchorage and 400 miles north of Fairbanks. Prudoe Bay is 1,200 miles from the North Pole and 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It was discovered in 1968 by ARCO and Exxon, and the major owners have invested upwards of $25 billion to develop the field and the trans-Alaska pipeline to move the crude oil to market.

• The pipeline starts in Prudhoe Bay and ends 800 miles south, at the Port of Valdez. The first section of pipe was laid in March, 1975, and the last in May, 1977. Three weeks later, oil flowed from Prudhoe to Valdez at a speed of four mph through a 48-inch-wide pipe. The journey took eight days. More than 70,000 workers labored over the project from its beginnings at a cost of $8 billion at the time. By 1979, 1.5 million barrels had been produced in the field.

VOLCANIC ACTIVITY

• Eighty percent of the United States’ active volcanoes are in Alaska, amounting to more than 70 peaks. There have been one or two eruptions from Alaskan volcanoes every year since 1900, although most are not considered catastrophic.

• The largest and most violent eruption of the 20th century took place in 1912 when the Novarupta volcano erupted releasing a massive volume of magma about 30 times larger than the Mt. St. Helens, Washington eruption in 1980. Fortunately, the Novarupta event occured in an isolated area with very sparse population, resulting in zero deaths and minimal damage to man-made structures.

• The world’s second-largest and North America’s strongest earthquake occurred in central Alaska in March, 1964, when a 9.2 magnitude quake lasting 4.5 minutes violently shook the area. The resulting massive tsunami caused coastal damage as far away as California, Hawaii, and Japan. Eleven major aftershocks with a magnitude greater than 6.0 followed on that day, with nine more during the next three weeks, and thousands of smaller ones over the ensuing year.

• While nine people died as a direct result of the earthquake, 122 perished from the effects of the tsunami. Structural damage in Alaskan towns totaled nearly $400 million (about $3.5 billion in today’s dollars)

• Did you know the capital city of Juneau has had several different names? It was first named Harrisburg, after the co-discoverer of gold in the area. Joe Harris was the self-appointed town recorder and named the townsite after himself. In early 1881, Harrisburg became Rockwell in honor of the naval lieutenant commander stationed there.

By the end of the year, the other gold co-discoverer, Joe Juneau, put the issue to a vote and 72 miners made the decision to officially change it to Juneau's namesake.

• Because of the rugged and treacherous mountains surrounding it, the only way to travel to Juneau is by plane or ferry. It shares its eastern border with the Canadian province of British Columbia. While the city has a small population, just 32,000, it receives about 900,000 cruise ship passengers and another 100,000 independent travelers every year.

• The state’s most populous city, Anchorage, is home to nearly 40% of Alaska’s population. It’s larger in land area than the entire state of Rhode Island.

• On January 3, 1959, legislation was signed admitting the territory of Alaska to the Union as the 49th state. □

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