Vitus Bering, a Dane working for the
Russians, and Alexei Chirikov discovered the Alaskan
mainland and the Aleutian Islands in 1741. The
tremendous land mass of Alaska—equal to one-fifth of
the continental U.S.—was unexplored in 1867 when
Secretary of State William Seward arranged for its
purchase from the Russians for $7,200,000. The
transfer of the territory took place on Oct. 18,
1867. Despite a price of about two cents an acre,
the purchase was widely ridiculed as “Seward's
Folly.” The first official census (1880) reported a
total of 33,426 Alaskans, all but 430 being of
aboriginal stock. The Gold Rush of 1898 resulted in
a mass influx of more than 30,000 people. Since
then, Alaska has contributed billions of dollars'
worth of products to the U.S. economy.
In 1968, a large oil and gas reservoir near Prudhoe
Bay on the Arctic Coast was found. The Prudhoe Bay
reservoir, with an estimated recoverable 10 billion
barrels of oil and 27 trillion cubic feet of gas, is
twice as large as any other oil field in North
America. The Trans-Alaska pipeline was completed in
1977 at a cost of $7.7 billion. Oil flows through
the 800-mile-long pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the
port of Valdez.
Other important industries are fisheries, wood and
wood products, furs, and tourism.
Denali National Park and Mendenhall Glacier in North
Tongass National Forest are of interest, as is the
large totem pole collection at Sitka National
Historical Park. The Katmai National Park includes
the “Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes,” an area of
active volcanoes.
The Alaska Native population includes Eskimos,
Indians, and Aleuts. About half of all Alaska
Natives are Eskimos. (Eskimo is used for Alaska
Natives; Inuit is used for Eskimos living in
Canada.) The two main Eskimo groups, Inupiat and
Yupik, are distinguished by their language and
geography. The former live in the north and
northwest parts of Alaska and speak Inupiaq, while
the latter live in the south and southwest and speak
Yupik.
About a third of Alaska Natives are American
Indians. The major tribes are the Alaskan Athabaskan
in the central part of the state, and the Tlingit,
Tsimshian, and Haida in the southeast.
The Aleuts, native to the Aleutian Islands, Kodiak
Island, the lower Alaska and Kenai Peninsulas, and
Prince William Sound, are physically and culturally
related to the Eskimos. About 15% of Alaska Natives
are Aleuts. |
