History UsefulNotes / Alaska

* Alicia Lily Aska from ''FanFic/TheHamsterballShow'' is from Alaska. In fact, her first and middle initials plus her last name ''[[UpToEleven spells out Alaska]]''!

The first Europeans to lay eyes on Alaska were the Russians in 1741, who colonized it for the same reason that everybody else in Europe wanted a piece of the Americas: getting rich. Specifically, the Russians were there for the fur trade, and claimed an area that includes much of the [[UsefulNotes/TheOtherRainforest Pacific Northwest]]. As the U.S. and Canada expanded west, the Russian claims were pushed back to the present-day area of Alaska. The colony was never very profitable for Russia, and was increasingly under pressure from Canada and its British protectors, so when the Americans came knocking at their door in 1867 asking to buy it from them for the [[{{Pun}} cool]] sum of $7.2 million,[[note]]Somewhere between 150 and 200 million dollars in 2021 dollars[[/note]] the Russians were happy to oblige. The purchase of Alaska was highly controversial initially, with many people calling it "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox" (after Secretary of State William H. Seward, the man who organized the purchase) and viewing it as a worthless wasteland that America would find no better use for than Russia did.

The first Europeans to lay eyes on Alaska were the Russians in 1741, who colonized it for the same reason that everybody else in Europe wanted a piece of the Americas: getting rich. Specifically, the Russians were there for the fur trade, and claimed an area that includes much of the [[UsefulNotes/TheOtherRainforest Pacific Northwest]]. As the U.S. and Canada expanded west, the Russian claims were pushed back to the present-day area of Alaska. The colony was never very profitable for Russia, and was increasingly under pressure from Canada and its British protectors, so when the Americans came knocking at their door in 1867 asking to buy it from them for the [[{{Pun}} cool]] sum of $7.2 million, the Russians were happy to oblige. The purchase of Alaska was highly controversial initially, with many people calling it "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox" (after Secretary of State William H. Seward, the man who organized the purchase) and viewing it as a worthless wasteland that America would find no better use for than Russia did.

Alaska's true value, however, was completely unforeseeable to the 19th-century Americans, and only became obvious in the late 1940s: Ladies and gentlemen, imagine ''Soviet'' Alaska. The West really dodged a bullet on that one, no? Anyway, with the onset of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, Alaska became the cornerstone of America's defense against [[UsefulNotes/FromRussiaWithNukes Soviet bombers]]. The two wars, and the resulting military investment, caused a population surge in Alaska, allowing it to be inaugurated as the 49th state in 1959, followed by UsefulNotes/{{Hawaii}} a few months later.[[note]]Fact: the reason the two states weren't admitted at the same time is apparently because, since the U.S. flag can only be ''officially'' changed on July 4, flag-makers wanted to be able to have one year of selling 49-star flags -- thus Alaska was admitted before the 4th and Hawaii after.[[/note]][[note]]If only it had been admitted before New Mexico and Arizona. [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Then it could have been called "AK-47!"]][[/note]]

* The Creator/{{Pixar}} short film ''Knick Knack'' stars a snowman trapped in a snow globe with "Nome Sweet Nome, Alaska" written on the base.

* The Pixar short film ''Knick Knack'' stars a snowman trapped in a snow globe with "Nome Sweet Nome, Alaska" written on the base.

* [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Will Riker]] was (will be?) born in Valdez, Alaska (in the year [[TheFuture 2335]]).

* Rock band Music/PortugalTheMan currently reside in Portland, Oregon, but they originate from the town of Wasilla.

* "It was an [[WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants ALASKAN BULL WORM]]!"

* Unlike the other 49 states, not all of Alaska is organized into counties (or "parishes" as in Louisiana, or "boroughs" as in Alaska itself). In the "unorganized borough" covering more than half the state, the only local services are municipalities and school boards, with everything else handled directly by the state or by the tribal government. It was originally intended that Alaska would have multiple unorganized boroughs for all the regions that either lacked sufficient population for an organized borough or just didn't want one (the state constitution specifically authorizes such an arrangement) but it was soon realized that it would be simpler to just designate the entire state as the unorganized borough and then carve organized boroughs out of it as needed.[[note]]Oddly enough, the first organized borough wasn't drawn around Anchorage, or even Fairbanks or Juneau, but tiny Bristol Bay with no incorporated towns and a population of less than 1,000. Even stranger, one of the unincorporated towns of Bristol Bay Borough, King Salmon, is the seat of government for ''another borough'', the neighboring (and barely more populous) Lake and Peninsula Borough. This is the only county-equivalent in the United States to have its government seated outside its own borders.[[/note]] There are periodic calls to create more organized boroughs out of the remainder of the unorganized borough, but since so much of it is completely devoid of human residents nothing ever comes of it.

* The final shot of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar was fired off the coast of Alaska. [=CSS=] ''Shenandoah'' was a commerce raider with the job of harassing, disrupting, and destroying Union supply ships. During the summer of 1865, they had been working the Bering Sea attacking Union whaling ships; in August 1865, they were informed by a friendly British crew that the war was over and the Confederacy dissolved. The crew of the ''Shenandoah'' knew that if they surrendered to the Union, they'd be given a perfunctory trial and executed for piracy, despite the fact that the Union and all major naval powers had ships just like theirs.[[note]]The Union would have responded to this argument by saying something along the lines of "You weren't a major power, just rebels; your government was illegal and didn't actually exist; no government means you weren't licensed to raid commerce; and no license makes you pirates."[[/note]] Instead, they sailed west around Asia and Africa, finally debarking in Liverpool.

* ''Alaska State Troopers'', a program similar to ''COPS'' is naturally set in Alaska.

But Alaska is also very sparsely populated. As of the 2020 census, there were just over 730,000 human beings living in Alaska, making the state the third least-populated in the nation, outranking only Vermont and Wyoming. And this comes ''after'' a huge population surge in the 2000s (many migrants coming in from California, Oregon, and Washington for economic opportunities) -- in the 2000 and 1990 censuses, Alaska was firmly the second-smallest state by population, just barely ahead of Wyoming. More than half of those people live in only one tiny corner of the state: the Anchorage metropolitan area, with about 40% of the population living in Anchorage itself. The state has, by far, the lowest population density in the country. Part of this likely has to do with the fact that most of Alaska is either [[SlippySlideyIceWorld frozen tundra or forbidding mountains]], something of an American version of Siberia, with only the coastal regions in the south being really hospitable.[[note]]Although in the future, ClimateChange may push the line between "Cold" and "Oh-god-this-is-fuckin'-freezing!" further north, making the state more welcoming to new arrivals.[[/note]] The lowest temperature ever recorded in the U.S., –80° [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCustomaryMeasurements Fahrenheit]] (–62° Celsius), was taken in Prospect Creek, Alaska, on January 23, 1975.

But Alaska is also very sparsely populated. As of the 2020 census, there were just over 730,000 human beings living in Alaska, making the state the third least-populated in the nation, outranking only Vermont and Wyoming. And this comes ''after'' a huge population surge in the 2000s (many migrants coming in from California, Oregon, and Washington for economic opportunities) -- in the 2000 and 1990 censuses, Alaska was firmly the second-smallest state by population, just barely ahead of Wyoming. More than half of those people live in only one tiny corner of the state: the Anchorage metropolitan area, with about 40% of the population living in Anchorage itself. The state has, by far, the lowest population density in the country. Part of this likely has to do with the fact that most of Alaska is either [[SlippySlideyIceWorld frozen tundra or forbidding mountains]], something of an American version of Siberia, with only the coastal regions in the south being really hospitable.[[note]]Although in the future, GlobalWarming may push the line between "Cold" and "Oh-god-this-is-fuckin'-freezing!" further north, making the state more welcoming to new arrivals.[[/note]] The lowest temperature ever recorded in the U.S., –80° [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCustomaryMeasurements Fahrenheit]] (–62° Celsius), was taken in Prospect Creek, Alaska, on January 23, 1975.

* Rock band Portugal. The Man currently reside in Portland, Oregon, but they originate from the town of Wasilla.

But Alaska is also very sparsely populated. As of the 2010 census, there were just over 710,000 human beings living in Alaska, making the state the fourth least-populated in the nation, outranking only North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming. And this comes ''after'' a huge population surge (many migrants coming in from California, Oregon, and Washington for economic opportunities) -- in the 2000 and 1990 censuses, Alaska was firmly the second-smallest state by population, just barely ahead of Wyoming. More than half of those people live in only one tiny corner of the state: the Anchorage metropolitan area, with about 40% of the population living in Anchorage itself. The state has, by far, the lowest population density in the country. Part of this likely has to do with the fact that most of Alaska is either [[SlippySlideyIceWorld frozen tundra or forbidding mountains]], something of an American version of Siberia, with only the coastal regions in the south being really hospitable.[[note]]Although in the future, GlobalWarming may push the line between "Cold" and "Oh-god-this-is-fuckin'-freezing!" further north, making the state more welcoming to new arrivals.[[/note]] The lowest temperature ever recorded in the U.S., –80° [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCustomaryMeasurements Fahrenheit]] (–62° Celsius), was taken in Prospect Creek, Alaska, on January 23, 1975.

Alaska's true value, however, was completely unforeseeable to the 19th-century Americans, and only became obvious in the late 1940s: Ladies and gentlemen, imagine ''Soviet'' Alaska. The West really dodged a bullet on that one, no? Anyway, with the onset of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, Alaska became the cornerstone of America's defense against [[UsefulNotes/FromRussiaWithNukes Soviet bombers]]. The two wars, and the resulting military investment, caused a population surge in Alaska, allowing it to be inaugurated as the 49th state in 1959, followed by UsefulNotes/{{Hawaii}} a few months later.[[note]]Fact: the reason the two states weren't admitted at the same time is apparently because, since the U.S. flag can only be ''officially'' changed on July 4, flag-makers wanted to be able to have one year of selling 49-star flags -- thus Alaska was admitted before the 4th and Hawaii after.[[/note]][[note]] If only it had been admitted before New Mexico and Arizona. [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Then it could have been called "AK-47!"]][[/note]]

The two moments that defined Alaska's modern existence were the discovery of oil in Prudhoe Bay in 1968, and the completion of the Alaskan Pipeline in 1977 to bring that oil to the rest of the country. Oil money transformed Alaska from a backwater to one of the richest states in America, and the state has set up a permanent fund to invest some of its oil revenue for the benefit of the people. Every Alaskan receives a dividend (of varying amounts -- in 2011, $1281; in 2012, $878), meaning that a family of four has a guaranteed welfare check of about $5000... which just about makes up for the substantially higher cost of living. While it's gotten better in Anchorage and, to a lesser extent, Fairbanks, prices for basic goods are still ridiculously expensive in most of the state, due to the isolation of many towns and the harsh conditions making freight transport [[Series/IceRoadTruckers quite difficult]].

* Less than 1% of Alaskan land is privately owned. The rest belongs to either the national government (~65%), the state government (25%), or one of twelve Native corporations (10%).[[note]]There is a thirteenth native corporation, but they received no land, only money. This particular company was created specifically to compensate Alaska Natives who lived outside the state.[[/note]]

Alaska was the first place in the Americas that human beings laid eyes on, as the last ice age lowered sea levels enough so that a land bridge, known as Beringia, formed between Alaska and Siberia.[[note]]The remnants of this bridge are the Bering Sea Islands of St. Lawrence, Nunivak, and the Diomedes.[[/note]] The people who crossed Beringia are the ancestors of all the aboriginal tribes of North and South America, from [[InjunCountry the Iroquois and the Sioux]] to [[{{Mayincatec}} the Aztecs and the Inca]]. Some of them, of course, stayed in Alaska, living off the ample supplies of fish in the waters off the state's long coastline. Collectively, they are known as the Alaska Natives, a group that encompasses the Tlingit, the Haida, the Tsimshian, the Aleut, the Yup'ik, the Alutiiq, the Gwich'in, and the Iñupiat.

* No big surprise that the GIJoe named Frostbite (real name [[LocationThemeNaming Farley S. Seward]]) is from Galena, Alaska.

[[UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates America]]'s last true frontier, Alaska is, by a very wide margin, the largest of [[UsefulNotes/TheSeveralStates the 50 states]]. The next competitor for the title, [[EverythingIsBigInTexas Texas]], is less than half its size. If it were [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alaska_area_compared_to_conterminous_US.svg overlaid over the contiguous 48 states]], then Anchorage, its largest city, would be in Missouri; Barrow, its northernmost town, would be in Minnesota; Ketchikan, its southernmost, would be in Florida; Nome would be in South Dakota; Juneau, the state capital, would be in Georgia; and the Aleutian Islands would stretch all the way into UsefulNotes/{{California}}. Bottom line: Alaska is ''huge''.

Alaska's true value, however, was completely unforeseeable to the 19th-century Americans, and only became obvious in the late 1940s: Ladies and gentlemen, imagine ''Soviet'' Alaska. The West really dodged a bullet on that one, no? Anyway, with the onset of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, Alaska became the cornerstone of America's defense against [[UsefulNotes/FromRussiaWithNukes Soviet bombers]]. The two wars, and the resulting military investment, caused a population surge in Alaska, allowing it to be inaugurated as the 49th state in 1959, followed by UsefulNotes/{{Hawaii}} a few months later.[[note]]Fact: the reason the two states weren't admitted at the same time is apparently because, since the U.S. flag can only be ''officially'' changed on July 4th, flag-makers wanted to be able to have one year of selling 49-star flags -- thus Alaska was admitted before the 4th and Hawaii after.[[/note]][[note]] If only it had been admitted before New Mexico and Arizona. [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Then it could have been called "AK-47!"]][[/note]]

* It is true that, in much of the state, nighttime can go for several consecutive weeks in the winter, and daylight can do the same in the summer. However, "six months of light, six months of darkness" is something of an overstatement. In Barrow, which is basically the worst-case scenario, the sun doesn't officially rise between about November 20 and January 20, but locals still get about three hours of twilight per day. The opposite is true around the summer solstice, where even in Anchorage the sun doesn't completely vanish from view for several weeks.

* It is located between Bering Strait which serves as the boundary between North America and Asia (Russia). Because of this, Alaska is the nearest U.S. state to Asia.

* It is located near Bering Strait which serves as the boundary between North America and Asia. Because of this, Alaska is the nearest U.S. state to Asia.

* Alaska is the nearest US state to UsefulNotes/{{Asia}} because it is located near North Asia or the Asian portion of Russia, just across the Bering Strait from them.

* Alaska is the nearest US state to UsefulNotes/{{Asia}} because it is located near the Asian portion of Russia or North Asia, just across the Bering Strait from them.

* Alaska is the nearest US state to UsefulNotes/{{Asia}} because it is located near North Asia/the Asian portion of Russia, just across the Bering Strait from them.

And now, for the part you've been waiting for: UsefulNotes/SarahPalin. Yes, she spent a little more than two years as the governor of this state. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment Now let's keep discussion about her to a minimum, all right?]] The ''other'' [[Creator/MichaelPalin Palin]] (no, not the former governor's husband) has also been here. His travelogue series about voyaging all around the Pacific Rim nations featured a visit to Alaska, where at one point he really ''could'' see Russia from the part of Alaska he was standing in. So one Palin really did manage it -- but it wasn't Sarah.

* Alaska is the nearest US state to Asia because it is located near the Asian portion of Russia or North Asia.

* The capital of Alaska, Juneau, is the only state capital located on an international border (the Canadian border, [[MemeticMutation not the]] [[Creator/TinaFey Russian one]]),[[note]]Currently, that is; for a few years in the 1830s and '40s, the capital of UsefulNotes/{{Michigan}} was in UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}}, also on the border with (then-British) Canada; this was moved for reasons of logistics and fear of British invasion.[[/note]] and is one of the state capitals that cannot be reached by land.[[note]]Honolulu, Hawaii's capital, is the other, of course.[[/note]] To reach Juneau, you must fly or take a boat in.

* [[http://mariancall.com/ Marian Call]] makes her home in Alaska (though, like Jewel, was not born there). Very much OneOfUs, as her music usually contains themes from {{geek}} culture, especially from her album ''Got to Fly'' (which even has a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLBb58iHiRA Nerd Anthem]]).

* The tallest mountain in North America, Denali (formerly Mount [=McKinley=], after [[UsefulNotes/WilliamMcKinley a president who never set foot in Alaska and never knew that anybody was naming a mountain after him]], though the native name has always been what most Alaskans called it), is in Alaska. This mountain, incidentally, is among the tallest from base to summit in the world (Everest, for one, may have a much higher summit, but its base does not begin until at least 15,000' above sea level).
* There is a town east of Fairbanks called North Pole, which is the official-unofficial place the United States Postal Service sends all the children's letters to Santa Claus. This has been embraced by the town, with North Pole becoming a bit of a StepfordSuburbia[[note]]See the "Truth in Television" section of the linked article.[[/note]] where the entire town is Christmas-themed and local sixth-graders are required to help answer letters to Santa.
** Incidentally, North Pole is nowhere near Barrow, the American town closest to the ''actual'' North Pole.