Alaska

I

Introduction

Alaska, northernmost and westernmost state of the United States, and the largest state of the Union. It occupies the extreme northwestern region of the North American continent and is separated from Asia by the 82-km- (51-mi-) wide Bering Strait. Alaska has belonged to the United States since 1867, when it was bought from Russia by Secretary of State William H. Seward. The United States paid Russia $7.2 million for the rights of the Russian American Company in Alaska.

By 1900 Alaska had become a land of golden opportunity as one gold discovery followed another and prospectors arrived by the tens of thousands. Although the gold rush was over within a few years, many people settled in Alaska, and fishing developed as an important industry. Alaska’s strategic importance became apparent during World War II (1939-1945) with the Japanese attack on Dutch Harbor and occupation of Atta and Kiska and with the American desire to send military aid, particularly aircraft, through Alaska to Russia. During the 1940s and 1950s, the large influx of immigrants helped to give renewed impetus to its movement for statehood. On January 3, 1959, Alaska was admitted to the Union as the 49th state.

Alaska is a rugged, wild, beautiful land of majestic mountains and deep, high-walled fjords; of slow-moving glaciers and still-active volcanoes; of dense, coniferous forests and desolate, treeless islands; of hot springs and icy streams. It is a land of contrasts, with extremes of wind and sun, snow and rain, heat and cold.

Alaska is a land that has undergone tremendous change. Since becoming a United States territory in 1912, it has significantly developed its mineral, fishery, forest, and petroleum resources. The state now has a stable and self-sufficient economy based on its rich and varied natural resources—above all, oil and natural gas. Today’s Alaska is a composite of old and new, with fur trappers, traditional sea mammal hunters, and dog teams living in a state with modern cities connected to the world by all the modern means of communication.

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The name Alaska is probably derived from an Aleut word meaning “great land,” which originally referred to the Alaska Peninsula. Alaska is called the Last Frontier, because of its opportunities and many lightly settled regions, and the Land of the Midnight Sun, because the sun shines nearly around the clock during Alaskan summers. Anchorage is Alaska’s largest city, and Juneau is the state capital.

II

Physical Geography

Alaska occupies the northwestern portion of North America. It includes the Aleutian Islands, a chain of about 150 islands that arcs westward across the Pacific Ocean for 1,800 km (1,100 mi).

Alaska has a total area of 1,717,854 sq km (663,267 sq mi), including 44,659 sq km (17,243 sq mi) of inland water and 70,057 sq km (27,049 sq mi) of coastal water over which the state has jurisdiction. Alaska has more area of lakes and rivers than any other state, equaling more than the entire land area of Massachusetts and Vermont combined. The state’s extreme dimensions are about 2,240 km (about 1,390 mi) from north to south and about 3,550 km (about 2,210 mi) from east to west. The mean elevation is about 580 m (1,900 ft). A large area, north of an imaginary line from the Seward Peninsula through Fort Yukon to the Canadian border, lies within the Arctic Circle. Alaska’s Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait is 4 km (2.5 mi) east of Big Diomede Island, or Ratmanov Island, which belongs to Russia (see Diomede Islands). Fairbanks, in the center of the state, is 5,280 km (3,280 mi) by air from New York City, 5,670 km (3,520 mi) from Tokyo, and 6,810 km (4,230 mi) from London. This key position, at the northern end of the Pacific Ocean and close to Asia, is a major factor in Alaska’s continued economic importance.

A

Natural Regions

Alaska can be divided into three major natural regions: the Coast Ranges region, the Interior region, and the Arctic region.

The Coast Ranges region is an area of high mountains, great valleys, and many islands. It extends about 1,900 km (about 1,200 mi) along Alaska’s Pacific coast and is generally narrower than about 300 km (about 200 mi). It can be divided, in turn, into the subregions of southeastern Alaska, south central Alaska, and southwestern Alaska.

Southeastern Alaska, often called the Alaska Panhandle, or Panhandle, is a narrow, mountainous strip of the mainland between British Columbia and the Pacific Ocean. It is fringed by the Alexander Archipelago, a group of 1,100 islands. Between the islands and the mainland is part of the Inside Passage, a deep natural waterway used by vessels traveling along the coast. The islands of the archipelago are the tops of submerged mountains, whose peaks rise steeply about 900 to 1,500 m (about 3,000 to 5,000 ft) above the water. On the mainland the Boundary Range rises abruptly from the water’s edge, and varies in elevation from 1,500 to more than 3,000 m (5,000 to more than 10,000 ft).

In the northern section of the Alaska Panhandle and in adjoining areas of Canada are the Saint Elias Mountains, which reach 5,489 m (18,008 ft) above sea level at Mount Saint Elias, one of the highest peaks in North America.

The fjords along the coast are deep, narrow inlets that have been gouged out by glaciers and then partly submerged by the sea. Glaciers in Alaska number more than 100,000. Vast glaciers occur in the mountains northwest of Juneau. At Glacier Bay the huge Muir Glacier towers 60 m (200 ft) above the water. At the foot of Mount Saint Elias is the Malaspina Glacier, which covers an area larger than Rhode Island. The Malaspina Glacier is the largest piedmont glacier in North America. A piedmont glacier occurs at the foot of a mountain range and consists of a large number of valley glaciers that coalesce. Just north of the Saint Elias Mountains are the volcanic Wrangell Mountains, which include Mount Wrangell, Mount Sanford, and Mount Drum.

South central Alaska extends around the Gulf of Alaska from the Malaspina Glacier to the Alaska Peninsula. It is bounded on the north and west by the Alaska Range, a belt of mountains 80 to 100 km (50 to 60 mi) wide that is connected with the Saint Elias Mountains on the east. The Alaska Range includes Mount McKinley, whose south peak is the highest point in North America at 6,194 m (20,320 ft). The coastal section of south central Alaska resembles that of the Panhandle. North of Cook Inlet, broad river flats lead inland to the Susitna and the Matanuska river valleys, which comprise the only extensive lowland area in the Pacific Mountains region.

Southwestern Alaska is composed of the narrow Alaska Peninsula, the Aleutian Islands, and Kodiak Island. The backbone of the peninsula is the volcanic, heavily glaciated Aleutian Range, which continues through the Aleutian Islands to the Kamchatka Peninsula. With more than 50 active volcanoes, the Aleutians are the site of frequent eruptions, including in recent years Mount Veniaminov and Mount Augustine in lower Cook Inlet. From time to time major eruptions shake the area. Novarupta Volcano and Katmai Volcano, at the base of the Alaska Peninsula, erupted in 1912 and created the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. The Aleutian Islands, or Aleutians, are an extension of the Aleutian Range and divide the Bering Sea from the Pacific Ocean. Cape Wrangell, in the Aleutians, is the westernmost point in the United States. Kodiak Island is the second largest island in the United States. The Pribilof Islands, also part of Alaska, lie in the Bering Sea northeast of the Aleutian Islands.

The Alaskan Interior is bounded by the Alaska Range on the south, the Brooks Range on the north, the border with the Yukon Territory on the east, and the Bering Sea on the west. It contains the Tanana Yukon Upland, with maximum elevations in the east of about 1,200 m (about 4,000 ft) and separating the lowlands or flats of the Yukon and Tanana rivers, and ends at the vast lowland between the lower Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. The Yukon Flats, northeast of Fairbanks, form a large depression surrounded by highlands and have the coldest winter and hottest summer temperatures in Alaska. Once the Kuskokwim River passes through the Kuskokwim Mountains, it forms the southern edge of a vast lake-studded alluvial plain bounded on the north by the Yukon River. This water-logged lowland is a major summer nesting area for birds. Fairbanks is the major city in this region, while Fort Yukon is the major community in the Yukon Flats and Bethel the largest settlement on the Lower Kuskokwim River.

The glaciated Brooks Range separates Interior from Arctic Alaska. Its highest elevations are in the east near the border with the Yukon Territory, and it extends almost to the Chukchi Sea in the west. The western Brooks Range consist of two ranges, the Baird and DeLong Mountains, and is drained by the Noatak River. The Dalton Highway, connecting Fairbanks with Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean, crosses the Brooks Range at Atigun Pass.

The Arctic Region is bounded by the Beaufort Sea to the north, the Chukchi Sea to the west, and the crest of the Brooks Range to the south. It is crossed by numerous northward-flowing rivers, the largest of which is the Colville. The region has never been subject to glaciation; contains continuous permafrost; enormous deposits of coal, petroleum, and natural gas; and is the summer calving grounds for hundreds of thousands of caribou and nesting grounds for migratory birds. It consists of the northern slopes and low foothills of the Brooks Range and a large Arctic coastal plain, popularly called the Arctic Slope or simply the Slope (see North Slope). The eastern portion of the plain is narrow, extending only 19 km (12 mi) from the mountains to the sea at Demarcation Point, marking the boundary with the Yukon Territory, but reaches a width nearly ten times as great at Point Barrow, the northernmost point in the United States. The region’s principal settlement, Barrow, is near the point. The region contains at Prudhoe Bay the largest single source of petroleum in the United States. The area east of the Colville River is encompassed by the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the area to the west by the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Small deposits of petroleum and natural gas, as well as huge deposits of coal, are known to be in the National Petroleum Reserve, but the largest petroleum deposits are believed to exist in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

B

Rivers and Lakes

The principal river is the Yukon River, which rises in the nearby Yukon Territory. About two-thirds of its 3,190 km (1,980 mi) course lies in Alaska. The Yukon is one of the longest navigable rivers in the world, and it flows westward in a gently curving arc across the Interior region to the Bering Sea just south of Norton Sound. Shallow-draft riverboats and barges can navigate its whole length during the ice-free summer weeks. Its main tributaries include the Porcupine, the Tanana, the Koyukuk, and the Innoko rivers. The silt laden, glacially fed Yukon forms a large delta with numerous shallow channels, or distributaries.

The second great river of Alaska is the Kuskokwim, 1,165 km (724 mi) long. Its four headstreams rise in the Alaska Range. The river winds southwestward to the Bering Sea. Near the end of its course the river approaches the Yukon, and shallow channels link the two river systems.

The Colville River flows into the Beaufort Sea; the Noatak, Kobuk, and Selawik rivers reach the sea near Kotzebue. The main route connecting Anchorage to Fairbanks, over Broad Pass, follows the Susitna and Chulitna rivers. The Copper River forms a huge delta, and provides access to the Interior from Glenallen. Cordova was at one time the port for the Copper and Chitina rivers. Wrangell remains the port for the Stikine River. The Alsek River is unusual in that it does not form an easily visible mouth or delta.

Alaska’s largest lake is Iliamna Lake at the foot of the Alaska Peninsula, covering 2,647 sq km (1,022 sq mi).

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