Alaska History and Geography class

Bill Walker

April 16, 1951 in Fairbanks, William Martin Walker is an American attorney and politician who is the 11th and current Governor of Alaska. He is the second native-born governor of Alaska after William A. Egan.

Aleuts

Are the indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands.

1987

Despite the stock market crash in October 1987, the Permanent Fund's performance ranks in the top 9% of all public funds in the U.S.

1943

Japan invaded the Aleutian Islands, which started the One Thousand Mile War, the first battle fought on American soil since the Civil War.

state nickname

Land of the Midnight Sun, The Last Frontier, Seward's Folly

Anchorage

Largest city in Alaska

1993

Permanent Fund assets reach $15 billion.

Permanent Fund

a constitutionally authorized appropriation of oil revenues, established by voters in 1976 to manage a surplus in state petroleum revenues from oil, largely in anticipation of the then recently constructed Trans-Alaska Pipeline System

1974 and 1977

The pipeline was built

"Miner's Code"

"an earthy mode of democratic justice whereby camp residents gathered whenever a dispute arose, and resolved the dispute by majority vote. Punishments were equally rough-hewn: hanging for murder, banishment or flogging for lesser crimes" according to Book Alaska's History: the People, Land and Events of the North Country

1799

'Czar Paul claims Alaska as Russian possession. Barnov named first Russian Governor of Alaska, establishes Russian post known as Old Sitka; trade charter grants exclusive trading rights to the Russian America Company

Vitus Jonassen Bering

(1680-1741) Danish naval officer and explorer in Russian service who gave his name to the Bering Strait and Bering Sea. In 1728, he sailed n from Kamchatka, ne Siberia, to the Bering Strait to discover whether Asia and North America were joined.

Joseph Juneau

(1836-1899) was a miner and prospector from Canada who was born in the Quebec town of Saint-Paul-l'Ermite, is best known for co-founding, with Richard Harris, the city of Juneau, Alaska, United States.

On Deadly Ground

(1994) was filmed near Worthington Glacier, Alaska, as well as the Valdez Civic Center and Valdez Airport, and 30 miles (48 km) outside Valdez on Thompson Pass in the Chugach Mountains.

William H. Seward

(May 16, 1801 - October 10, 1872) was United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869, and earlier served as Governor of New York and United States Senator

Bennie Benson

13-year-old from Cognac, Alaska who designed the state flag during a school contest in 1926

The Russian Period

1741-1867

William Allen Egan

(October 8, 1914 - May 6, 1984) was an American Democratic politician. He served as the first Governor of the State of Alaska from January 3, 1959 to 1966, and again from 1970 to 1974. Born in Valdez, Alaska, Egan is one of only two governors in the state's history (along with current incumbent Bill Walker) to have been born in Alaska. He was the Democratic nominee in five gubernatorial elections (1958, 1962, 1966, 1970, and 1974).

Atigun Pass

(elevation 4,739 feet/1,444 meters) is the only mountain pass in the Brooks Range crossed by a road, and it's also the highest pass in Alaska to be kept open year-round. South of Atigun Pass, you can search for gold on BLM-managed public lands, using a pan, pick, shovel, or rocker and sluice box.

Sitka spruce

. The Territorial Legislature adopted it as Alaska's official state tree in 1962.

Valdez

A former Gold Rush town, it is located at the head of a fjord on the eastern side of Prince William Sound. The port did not flourish until after the road link to Fairbanks was constructed in 1899. It suffered huge damage during the 1964 Alaska earthquake, and is located near the site of the disastrous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill. Today it is one of the most important ports in Alaska, a commercial fishing port as well as a freight terminal. The city was named in 1790 after the Spanish Navy Minister Antonio Valdés y Fernández Bazán.

Bering Land Bridge

A land bridge between Siberia and Alaska that was exposed during the most recent Ice Age when the waters of the Bering Strait receded.

James Dalton

A lifelong Alaskan and an engineer who supervised construction of the Distant Early Warning Line in Alaska and, as an expert in Arctic engineering, served as a consultant in early oil exploration in northern Alaska.

1763-64

A resistance is built up against the Russians by the people living in Umnak, Unimak, and Unalaska.

Algernon Percy

Admiral Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland KG PC FRS (15 December 1792 - 12 February 1865), styled Lord Algernon Percy until 1816 and known as The Lord Prudhoe between 1816 and 1847, was a British naval commander, explorer and Conservative politician. Northumberland entered the Royal Navy in 1805, aged 13, and served in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1815, when only 22, he was promoted to captain, taking command of HMS Cossack in August, and commanding her until she was broken up some 10 months later. The following year, aged 23, he raised to the peerage as Baron Prudhoe, of Prudhoe Castle in the County of Northumberland (Prudhoe being a town in Northumberland). He later became an Admiral in the Royal Navy. Between 1826 and 1829 he was part of an expedition to Egypt, Nubia and The Levant.

1942

African Americans sent to Alaska from the deep South. Pioneer service road built (Mirelez). Dutch Harbor is bombed by Japan.

1990

After the Legislature expands the statutory investment list, the Permanent Fund begins to invest in stock and bond markets outside the United States.

6,600 miles

Alasa's coastline approxamate length

Alaska Day

Alaska Day celebrates the formal transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States, which took place on October 18, 1867.

four-spot skimmer dragonfly

Alaska's official state insect

The Alaska Highway

Also known as The ALCAN Highwaywas constructed during World War II for the purpose of connecting the contiguous United States to Alaska across Canada in 1942 and measures approximetly 1,700 miles long.

Lisa Murkowski

Born May 22, 1957 in Ketchikan, AK Lisa Ann Murkowski is the senior United States Senator from Alaska and member of the Republican Party. She has served in the Senate since 2002.

Richard Tighe Harris

Canadian miner and prospector.(October 31, 1833 - October 11, 1907) born in Drummadonald, County Down, Ireland, attended Girard College, a private boarding school in Philadelphia, PA famous for co-founding, with Joe Juneau, the city of Juneau, Alaska.

Juneau

Capitol of Alaska in the Alaska panhandle

1974

Construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline begins. Construction lasts 39 months, costs $8 billion including the Marine Terminal in Valdez.

Cook Inlet

Cook Inlet (Dena'ina: Tikahtnu) stretches 180 miles (290 km) from the Gulf of Alaska to Anchorage in south-central Alaska.[1] Cook Inlet branches into the Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm at its northern end, almost surrounding Anchorage. On its south end merges with Shelikof Strait, Stevenson Entrance, Kennedy Entrance and Chugach Passage.

1983

Following changes to the statutory investment list, the Permanent Fund makes its first investment in the stock market, and later that year, in directly held real estate.

1890s

Gold rushes in Alaska and the nearby Yukon Territory brought thousands of miners and settlers to Alaska. Alaska was granted territorial status in 1912 by the United States of America.

1976

In November, Alaska voters, by a margin of 75,588 to 38,518, approve Constitutional amendment establishing the Permanent Fund.

Alaska State Legislature

It is a bicameral institution, consisting of the lower Alaska House of Representatives, with 40 members, and the upper house Alaska Senate, with 20 members. There are 40 House Districts (1-40) and 20 Senate Districts (A-T).

Aleutian Islands

More than 300 small volcanic islands make up this chain, which stretches over 1,200 miles (1,900 km) into the Pacific Ocean.

1804

Natives raided the 'Kiksadi fort on Indian River. Though the Russians lost, natives were still removed from the area and the fort was built back to its original stance.

State motto

North to the future

Feb. 1977

On February 28, the Permanent Fund receives its first deposit of dedicated oil revenues totaling $734,000. At first the Fund is invested entirely in bonds. The Legislature begins four years of public discussions regarding whether the Permanent Fund should be managed as an investment fund or as an economic development bank.

Good Friday earthquake

On March 27, 1964 killed 133 people and destroyed several villages and portions of large coastal communities, mainly by the resultant tsunamis and landslides

Mount Redoubt

Redoubt Volcano, or Mount Redoubt, is an active stratovolcano in the largely volcanic Aleutian Range of the U.S. state of Alaska. Located at the head of the Chigmit Mountains subrange in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, the mountain is just west of Cook Inlet, in the Kenai Peninsula Borough about 180 km (110 mi) southwest of Anchorage. At 10,197 feet (3,108 m), in just over 5 miles (8 km) Mount Redoubt attains 9,150 feet (2,700 m) of prominence over its surrounding terrain. It is the highest summit in the Aleutian Range.

1818

Russian navy assumed control of Alaska

1790

Russian settlement has a change of leaders and 'Aleksandr Baranov becomes director

1743

Russians begin to hunt fur seals. Then creating a trading post for the furs they earn, setting it up in Southcentral and Western Alaska.

1784

Russians build the 'the first school in Alaska' which they placed at 'Three Saints Bay-Kodiak Island

1804 to 1867

Sitka, renamed New Archangel in the Alexander Archipelago in what is now Southeast Alaska, became the capital of Russian America. It remained the capital after the colony was transferred to the United States. The Russians never fully colonized Alaska, and the colony was never very profitable. Evidence of Russian settlement in names and churches survive throughout southeast Alaska.

1861

The Gold Rush started in the Stikine River where gold was first found in Alaska.

Regions of Alaska

South Central, Southeast, Interior, Southwest, North Slope, and Aleutian Islands

1774 and 1800

Spain sent several expeditions to Alaska in order to assert its claim over the Pacific Northwest. In 1789 a Spanish settlement and fort were built in Nootka Sound. These expeditions gave names to places such as Valdez, Bucareli Sound, and Cordova. Later, the Russian-American Company carried out an expanded colonization program during the early-to-mid-19th century.

Dog mushing

The Alaska Legislature adopted it as the official state sport in 1972

1980

The Alaska Legislature creates the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, to manage the investments of the Permanent Fund, and places a list of allowed investments into state law.

1982

The Alaska Legislature, at the request of the Board of Trustees, enacts inflation proofing to protect the Fund's purchasing power. The first Permanent Fund dividend check of $1,000 is distributed. The Legislature pays this first dividend, not with Permanent Fund income, but with surplus oil revenues.

Seward's Folly

The Alaska Purchase was the United States' acquisition of Alaska from the Russian Empire on March 30, 1867, by a treaty ratified by the United States Senate, and signed by president Andrew Johnson.

Jonathan Frakes

The Character Cmdr. Will Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation television series and subsequent movies who grew up in the town of Valdez.

Dalton Highway

The James W. Dalton Highway, (and signed as Alaska Route 11), is a 414-mile (666 km)[1] road in Alaska. It begins at the Elliott Highway, north of Fairbanks, and ends at Deadhorse near the Arctic Ocean and the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. Once called the North Slope Haul Road (a name by which it is still sometimes known), it was built as a supply road to support the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System in 1974.

1969

The Prudhoe Bay oil lease sale brings in $900 million in revenues, a significant windfall for Alaska. Some suggest saving some or all of the $900 million, however it is spent over the next few years on capital projects and programs, such as the Alaska Student Loan program and the Alaska Longevity Bonus program.

Attu Island

The island was the site of the only World War II land battle fought on an incorporated territory of the United States (the Battle of Attu), and its battlefield area is a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

March 27, 1964

The massive Good Friday earthquake killed 133 people and destroyed several villages and portions of large coastal communities, mainly by the resultant tsunamis and landslides. It was the second-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. The time of day (5:36 pm), time of year and location of the epicenter were all cited as factors in potentially sparing thousands of lives, particularly in Anchorage.

1944

The mine in Juneau shuts down. Sunk Japanese submarine off of Kodiak Island.

664,988 square miles

The size of Alaska

Prudhoe Bay

The unofficial northern terminus of the Pan-American Highway. The Bay itself is still 10 miles further north than a security checkpoint so open water is not visible from the highway. Named in 1826 by British explorer Sir John Franklin after his classmate Captain Algernon Percy Baron Prudhoe (also know as Lord Prudhoe).

around 14,000 BC

Wanderer groups crossed the Bering land bridge into what is now western Alaska.

August 1967

Water overflowed the banks of the Chena River flooding Fairbanks and Fort Wainwright.

Denali formerly

also known as Mount McKinley, its former official name

Iñupiat

an Alaskan Native people, whose traditional territory spans Norton Sound on the Bering Sea to the Canada-United States border

Tlingit

an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America.

Haida people

an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their main territory is the archipelago of Haida Gwaii

Adak Island

an island near the western extent of the Andreanof Islands group of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Alaska's southernmost town, Adak, is located on the island. The island has a land area of 274.59 square miles (711.18 km2), measuring 33.9 miles (54.5 km) on length and 22 miles (35 km) on width, making it the 25th largest island in the United States.

1977

completion of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System led to an oil boom

1968

discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay

August 21, 1732

first European vessel to reach Alaska is generally held to be the St. Gabriel under the authority of the surveyor M. S. Gvozdev and assistant navigator.

Yupik

group of indigenous or aboriginal peoples of western, southwestern, and southcentral Alaska and the Russian Far East. They are Eskimo and are related to the Inuit and Iñupiat peoples.

Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS)

includes the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one of the world's largest pipeline systems. It is commonly called the Alaska pipeline, trans-Alaska pipeline, or Alyeska pipeline, (or the pipeline as referred to in Alaska), but those terms technically apply only to the 800 miles (1,287 km) of the pipeline with the diameter of 48 inches (122 cm) that conveys oil from Prudhoe Bay, to Valdez, Alaska. The crude oil pipeline is privately owned by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company.

Koyukon people

inhabit the area around the mountain have referred to the peak as "Denali" for centuries.

Bering Strait

is a strait of the Pacific, which borders with the Arctic to north. It is located between Russia and the United States. Named after Vitus Bering, a Danish-born explorer in the service of the Russian Empire, it lies slightly south of the Arctic Circle being at about 65° 40' N latitude.

Sitka

is a unified city-borough located on Baranof Island and the southern half of Chichagof Island in the Alexander Archipelago of the Pacific Ocean

Unimak Island

largest island in the Aleutian Islands chain of the U.S. state of Alaska

Willow Ptarmigan

largest of three "Arctic grouse" found in Alaska, and known as Alaska's state bird

Aleutian Range

major mountain range located in southwest Alaska, and it extends from Chakachamna Lake (80 miles/130 km southwest of Anchorage) to Unimak Island, which is at the tip of the Alaska Peninsula. It includes all of the mountains of the peninsula, and what makes it so special is its large number of active volcanoes, which are also part of the larger Aleutian Arc. The mainland part of the range is about 600 miles (1000 km) long; the Aleutian Islands are (geologically) a partially submerged western extension of the range that stretches for another 1,600 km (1000 mi).

Jade

official state gemstone

1973

oil crisis caused a sharp rise in oil prices in the United States.

Denali

the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190 m) above sea level.

forget-me-not

the official state flower of Alaska

Athabaskan

traditionally lived in Interior Alaska, an expansive region that begins south of the Brooks Mountain Range and continues down to the Kenai Peninsula. There are eleven linguistic groups of Athabascans in Alaska. Athabascan people have traditionally lived along five major river ways: the Yukon, the Tanana, the Susitna, the Kuskokwim, and the Copper river drainages. Athabascans migrated seasonally, traveling in small groups to fish, hunt and trap.