Alaska: History

Pre-20th-Century History

The first Alaskans migrated from Asia to north America around 40,000 years ago during an ice age that squeezed a 1449km (900mi) land bridge out of the ocean to separate Siberia and Alaska. Although many of these nomadic tribes continued south, five ethnic groups remained to eke out an existence in the wilderness - the Athabascans, Yup'iks, Aleuts, Inupiaq and the coastal tribes of Tlingits and Haidas.

The first Caucasian to set foot in Alaska was Virtus Bering, a Danish navigator sailing on behalf of the tsar of Russia in 1728 - he quickly took notice of the pelt potential of the large local seal and otter populations. Soon after, the Russians established a base for the fur trade on Kodiak Island, a lawless cowboy trade that spat and bit unregulated until the Russian-American Company was organised in the 1790s. Other European invaders, most notably the Spanish and the British, were seduced by this lucrative coast, but Russian predominance extended well into the 19th century.

The fur trade hit hard times in the 1860s and, with European wars demanding both attention and resources, the Russians decided to downsize their territorial holdings: several offers for the sale of Alaska were made to an initially ambivalent USA. Eventually, in 1867, the Americans signed a canny treaty to purchase the region for US$7200000.00 - less than two cents an acre. Despite the bargain buy out, Alaska remained lawless and unorganised, accessible (and interesting) only to a few hardy settlers until its natural riches began to be exploited. First it was whales, taken mostly in the Southeast, and then the enormous salmon stocks, but the real explosion in Alaska's economy, population and profile came in the 1880s with the discovery of gold.

Modern History

Chortling with the confidence that arrives hand-in-hand with wealth, big hats and the clicking over of a century's clock, Alaskans (all 60,000 of them) began laying claim to their own future. Congress started granting non-voting legislative privileges, but the statehood movement subsided during WWI when many residents headed south for high-paying jobs. Thus depleted, Alaska dozed until mid-1942 when the Japanese attacked the Attu and Aleutian Islands. Alaska owes much of its infrastructure to the concerted US response to this military threat on its northwest flank. Most notably, Alaska's only overland link to the rest of the US, the Alcan, was built, a 2447km (1520mi) engineering masterwork completed in just over eight months. The injection of funds and personnel spurred post-war development, leading to a new drive for statehood. In 1959, President Eisenhower proclaimed the 49th State of the Union, spawning the cute Alaskan monikering of the 'Lower 48'.

In 1968, massive oil deposits were discovered underneath Prudhoe Bay in the Arctic Ocean. This provoked intense negotiations between a ravenous oil industry, environmentalists and Native Alaskans with moral claims to land that now promised to generate extraordinary wealth. A treaty was signed with the indigenous population in 1971, and a 1270km (789mi) pipeline to the warm-water port of Valdez was constructed. In 1977, the oil that has made Alaska the richest state in the US began to flow. Oil still accounts for the gleam in the eyes of many Alaskans despite the shadows cast by the 1986 slump in world prices and the tragic Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.

Recent History

The exploitation of 'natural resources', particularly oil, is a hot topic in Alaska, bringing up the rights of Alaskans to earn a living, the concerns of environmental groups and the rights of the indigenous population. An increasing awareness that the Alaskan wilderness is an outstanding natural resource, all the more valuable if it is left untouched, may save the fabled frontier. Skyrocketing gasoline prices in the US, on the other hand, will surely endanger places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

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