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73 unusual facts about Alaska


A4 Pod

In January 2013, 55 year old matriarch Yakat (A11) was found dead on a beach near Ketchikan, Alaska.

Afognak

The descendants of the Native inhabitants of the island are officially recognized as the Native Village of Afognak, most of whom live in Port Lions or Kodiak.

African Metals Corporation

Shiega also had an interest in a project in the Tintina Gold Belt, northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska.

Alaska Communications System

The ACS also provided a vital lifeline - sometimes quite literally - to the many remote and almost inaccessible communities across Alaska: it enabled the icebound city of Nome to alert the outside world about a diphtheria outbreak which led to the successful 1925 serum run to Nome.

Alaska gubernatorial election, 2006

Incumbent Frank Murkowski (R), first elected governor in 2002, ran for reelection but was defeated in a landslide in the Republican primary by former Wasilla mayor Sarah Palin on August 22, 2006.

Alaska Nellie's Homestead

A post office opened in the area in 1924; Nellie was the first postmistress, and the post office was named Lawing in her honor.

Alaska v. Native Village of Venetie Tribal Government

The local tribal council in Venetie, Alaska, wanted to collect tax from non-tribal members doing business on tribal lands.

Alaska's Flag

At that time Benny was a thirteen-year-old seventh-grader of Russian-Aleut and Swedish descent, studying at the Territorial School at Seward and a resident of the Jesse Lee Mission Home.

Anti-moose mat

In October 2005, the municipal airport in Wasilla, Alaska, a town about 40 miles (65km) north of Anchorage, installed mats around the airfield to prevent moose from walking onto the runway and colliding with aircraft.

Arnold J. Isbell

Isbell was promoted to Captain in 1942 while in command of the Naval Air Station, Sitka, Alaska.

Balto

Balto (1919 – March 14, 1933) was a Alaskan Malamute sled dog who led his team on the final leg of the 1925 serum run to Nome, in which diphtheria antitoxin was transported from Anchorage, Alaska, to Nenana, Alaska, by train and then to Nome by dog sled to combat an outbreak of the disease.

Cassiar Country

After the excitement of the gold rushes, the Cassiar was nearly forgotten until the early 1940s when the American military built the Alaska Highway from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Fairbanks, Alaska, thus further opening up the area and providing ease of transportation like never before.

Chad Carpenter

Carpenter was born and raised in Wasilla, Alaska, immersed in nature at an early age as he grew up.

Christine Lund

Lund has two grown daughters, and currently runs a small general store in Baranof Warm Springs, Alaska.

Chuathbaluk, Alaska

In 1954, the Crow Village Sam Phillips family from Crow Village resettled the mission, and were joined later by individuals from Aniak and Crooked Creek.

Coldfoot, Alaska

North of Coldfoot, there are no services for 240 miles (400 km), until Deadhorse.

Commonwealth North

Founded in 1979, it is the oldest and largest public affairs forum in Alaska.

Delta River

Fed by the Tangle Lakes of the Alaska Range, the river flows north to meet the larger river near Big Delta.

Drake Olson

After retiring from racing, Olson became a glacier pilot in Alaska.

Elisabeth de Stroumillo

De Stroumillo's work was varied and detailed, including accounts of travels in Alaska, India and much of Europe, in particular France.

Energy use in California

{fact} In addition to oil from California, California’s refineries process crude oil from Alaska and foreign suppliers.

Ernest William Hawkes

His 1914 publication Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo was based on the three years Hawkes spent in the Bering Strait District, including on the Diomede Islands and at St. Michael.

Ethan Berkowitz

He was first elected to represent District 26 (Anchorage) in 1996, and then re-elected in 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004.

Berkowitz received more votes in 2008 (142,560) than any Democrat who had ever run against Young for Congress, and the 2008 race was the closest any Democrat had come to unseating Young since 1990, when John Devens of Valdez received 48% of the vote.

Fumimaro Konoe

Roosevelt told Ambassador Nomura that he would like to see more details of Konoe's proposal, and he suggested that Juneau, Alaska, might be a good spot for a meeting.

Gippsland Lakes

The wetlands provide habitat for about 20,000 waterbirds – including birds from as far afield as Siberia and Alaska.

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway

It would follow one of the routes surveyed by Sandford Fleming from Winnipeg to Port Simpson at the end of the Portland Canal which formed part of the boundary between British Columbia and Alaska.

Hellboy: The Troll Witch and Others

In the story Hellboy travels to Alaska in 1961, where he finds not only the grave of the recently deceased Hercules (who lived out the final years of his life in anonymity as a school janitor) but a monstrous hydra.

J. P. Hubrick

A resident of McCarthy, Alaska, Hubrick started the town's first newspaper, the Cooper Bee in February 1916.

James Evans, Sr.

In the second and third season of the show, James went to night school to complete his G.E.D., and afterwards was offered a construction job in Alaska during the building of the Alaska Pipeline and various other places away from Chicago, and even got to see his long lost father Henry again.

John C. Acton

Next he served as Commanding Officer, USCGC Cape Henlopen, a search and rescue patrol boat in Petersburg, Alaska, and then completed his active duty at Vessel Traffic Service, New Orleans.

John W. Nordstrom

While working at a sawmill he read a newspaper account of the discovery of gold in the Klondike and headed to Alaska to make his fortune.

Joint Task Force-Alaska

Per the Posse Comitatus Act, military forces can provide civil support in order to save lives, prevent injuries and provide temporary critical life support, but cannot become directly involved in law enforcement.

Kalifornsky

Kalifornsky, Alaska, a census-designated place (CDP) in Kenai Peninsula Borough

Killer whale attacks on humans

In August 2005, while swimming in four feet of water in Helm Bay, near Ketchikan, Alaska, a 12-year-old boy named Ellis Miller was "bumped" in the shoulder by a 25-foot transient killer whale.

Kim Elton

Muñoz, whose family came to Juneau from Wrangell in 1928, became the fourth generation in her family to hold elected office in Southeast Alaska when she was appointed to replace Dennis Egan (who was appointed Juneau's mayor) on the Juneau Assembly in 1995.

Kiwalik River

The start of the 20th century mining town of Candle is found on its western bank at the confluence of Candle Creek.

Lee McKinley

Applying for a homestead on land in what is now Butte, Alaska, he cleared an airstrip on the property and began flying to rural communities throughout Alaska.

Les Nessman

While Sanders simply flew into Anchorage to make the appearance, Les took the wrong bus, wound up in Texas, hitchhiked from there to North Dakota and then to Great Slave Lake, rode with a bush pilot to Whitehorse, bought a motorscooter, was sighted near Tok, was arrested for a minor traffic infraction, and then was bailed out of jail by the station.

Lockheed C-69 Constellation

The other C-69 aircraft were used for different trials such as the seventh C-69 being flown to Fairbanks, Alaska for testing in Arctic conditions.

Magic Kingdom on Ice

A Disneyliner airplane lands in the Magic Kingdom with a planeload of tourists, all happy to be there, save for one: Mr. Lito, who had inadvertently boarded the wrong plane; he originally planned to go to Hawaii, with a connecting flight in Alaska.

Marjory Collins

In 1944, Collins worked freelance for a construction company in Alaska before travelling to Africa and Europe on government and commercial assignments.

Matsumae clan

Like several other Japanese before them, they had been found in the Aleutians, off the coast of Alaska, by Russian sailors and had asked to be brought back to Japan.

McGrath, Alaska

The Old Town McGrath site, across the river from present-day McGrath, was a meeting and trading place for Big River, Nikolai, Telida, and Lake Minchumina villagers.

Michael Henry Herbert

He created with the U.S. Secretary of State John Hay a joint commission to establish the border between the U.S. district of Alaska and British interests in the Dominion of Canada, where gold had been found in the 1890s, which resulted in the definitive Alaskan boundary treaty of 1903.

Michael Joseph Kaniecki

He died suddenly on August 6, 2000 of a massive heart attack before celebrating a Mass in the Eskimo village of Emmonak, Alaska.

Minto, Alaska

The people from the Minto band were eventually joined by families from Nenana, Toklat, Crossjacket and Chena.

Nabesna, Alaska

It lies along a gravel road that connects it to the Tok Cut-Off at Slana.

Neil M. Colgan

He was also a member of climbing expeditions in the Canadian Rockies, the Andes and Alaska.

Noel, Missouri

Noel is one of a few "Christmas Cities" in America, along with North Pole, Alaska, Christmas, Michigan, Santa Claus, Indiana and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Ohagamiut, Alaska

Ohagamiut (Urr’agmiut in Central Alaskan Yup'ik) was a Yup'ik village along the Kuskokwim River in the Bethel Census Area of the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Alaska, located between Crow Village and Kalskag.

Patricia Dobler

She moved, as the spouse of a writer and professor, to Iowa City; Exeter, New Hampshire; Putney, Vermont; Anchorage, Alaska; Tucson, Arizona; El Paso, Texas; and finally Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

PFD Otter

PFD Otter is a spokesman and advocate for water safety, who spearheads the "Kids Don't Float" program created in Homer, Alaska.

Princess Tours

Princess Tours runs ten cars a day (five north, five south) from Anchorage to Fairbanks on the Alaska Railroad, stopping at Talkeetna, Denali, and occasionally Whittier.

Red Dog Mine

Red Dog Mine, Alaska, the census-designated place that includes the mine

Scouting in Alaska

This council was started in 1925 by a handful of girls in Fairbanks, Alaska headed by Jessie Bloom.

Siberian Husky

Dogs from the Anadyr River and surrounding regions were imported into Alaska from 1908 (and for the next two decades) during the gold rush for use as sled dogs, especially in the "All-Alaska Sweepstakes," a 408-mile (657-km) distance dog sled race from Nome, to Candle, and back.

Single-wire earth return

In 1981 a high-power 8.5 mile prototype SWER line was successfully installed from a diesel plant in Bethel to Napakiak in Alaska, United States.

SpazzStick

It was created by Richie Holschen, the only police officer in the remote Alaskan village of Kaktovik, who needed to protect his lips and remain alert in an area so cold that coffee freezes.

Stryker

The 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Fairbanks, Alaska's Fort Wainwright began its initial deployment in August 2005 to Summer 2006.

Swanson River

In its lower reaches, it passes through the Swanson River Oil Field east of Nikiski before turning sharply north.

Tanadgusix Corporation

TDX Power is a power production and distribution company with a hybrid wind-diesel power plant in Saint Paul (the largest hybrid wind-diesel power plant in Alaska), a 4-MW Cat diesel power plant in Sand Point, Alaska, and a 10-MW diesel and natural gas power plant on the North Slope in Deadhorse.

Tanana River

The river's headwaters are located at the confluence of the Chisana and Nabesna rivers just north of Northway in eastern Alaska.

Thomas M. Anderson

In February 1897 Anderson and 100 soldiers of the 14th set up a base in Skagway and Dyea, Alaska at the start of the Klondike gold rush to protect miners along the trails into Canada as well as to keep watch on the border.

Thompson v. Keohane

In September 1986, the body of a dead woman was discovered by two hunters in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Transportation in North America

The road network extends from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, and Anchorage, Alaska, in the extreme northwest, to Sydney, Nova Scotia, Cartwright, Newfoundland and Labrador, Blanc Sablon and Natashquan, Quebec, in the extreme east, all the way to Yaviza, Panama, in the extreme south.

United States Senate election in Alaska, 2004

Mike Miller, younger brother of Terry Miller, involved in the family business in North Pole, also served in the Alaska House of Representatives and Alaska Senate from 1983 to 2001 and was the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 1994

Upper Kalskag, Alaska

Over the years, residents of Crow Village, Ohagamiut, Russian Mission, and Paimute also moved to the village.

USS Galena

Cities, towns, and villages with the name exist in Kansas, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, and Alaska.

Walrus Island, Pribilof Islands

This islet should not be confused with the Walrus Islands in the Walrus Islands State Game Sanctuary, located close to Hagemeister Island (in the Dillingham Census Area), nor with Walrus Island located in the southeastern shores of the Bristol Bay (in the Aleutians East Borough).

Ward Cove

The town of Ward Cove (also Wacker, Wacker City, or Wards Cove) is located on the waterway.

William S. Stevens

A resident of Narberth, Pennsylvania, Stevens died at age 60 on December 8, 2008 of a heart attack while working in Anchorage, Alaska.

Women's Bay

Womens Bay, Alaska, a census-designated place in Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska, in the United States


Ahtna

Ahtna, Incorporated, an Alaska Native Regional Corporation created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971

Alaska boundary dispute

Some 100,000 fortune seekers moved through Alaska to the Klondike gold region.

Alexander McCandless

Christopher McCandless (1968–1992), also known as Alexander McCandless, American hiker who died in the Alaska wilderness

Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve

Father Bernard R. Hubbard was a Jesuit priest and professor of geology at Santa Clara University in California, who had been exploring Alaska's volcanoes and glaciers every summer season since 1927 and writing about them in best-selling books and in publications such as National Geographic and the Saturday Evening Post.

Betula neoalaskana

Its range covers most of interior Alaska, and extends from the southern Brooks Range to the Chugach Range in Alaska, including the Turnagain Arm and northern half of the Kenai Peninsula, easterward from Norton Sound into western Ontario, and north to Northwest Territories and southern Nunavut.

Cabela's Alaskan Adventures

The game features twelve different maps including Alaska and numerous bears such as the Grizzly bear, Black bear, Glacier Bear and Polar bear for the tutorial.

Charles Grayson

Grayson made his first bow from a lemonwood stave that he won selling tickets to a movie about Art Young's trek across Alaska.

Craig Stowers

After earning his law degree, Stowers served as a law clerk for U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Robert Boochever and then went on to serve as a law clerk for Alaska Supreme Court Justice Warren Matthews.

Danny Chen

Pvt. Chen served with C Company, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, which is based in Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

Dennis Stock

In the mid-1970s, he traveled to Japan and the Far East, and also produced numerous features series, such as photographs of contrasting regions, like Hawaii and Alaska.

Devil's Thumb

Devils Thumb, a mountain on the Alaska–British Columbia border

Drift River Terminal Facility

It is located in Alaska along Cook Inlet, at the terminus of the Drift River, an historic floodplain of nearby volcanic Mount Redoubt.

Drunken trees

Al Gore cited drunken trees caused by melting permafrost in Alaska as evidence of global warming, as part of his presentation in the 2006 documentary film An Inconvenient Truth.

Edward L. Keithahn

He became interested in totem poles at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle, Washington, in 1909 and later traveled to southeast Alaska and eventually lived there working "in the Indian service," as he put it (meaning perhaps employment with the Bureau of Indian Affairs), living mainly among the Tlingit and Haida people.

Flag of Alaska

The North Star is for the future state of Alaska, the most northerly in the union.

Frank Prewitt

In thirteen years of public service to the State of Alaska, Prewitt served as the Director of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute, Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Corrections and Assistant Alaska Attorney General.

Frederick Schwatka

Schwatka Lake in Whitehorse, Yukon, is named after him, as is Mount Schwatka, Alaska.

George Parks

George Alexander Parks (1883–1984), American engineer and Governor of Alaska Territory

GLV

Golovin Airport, an airport in Golovin, Alaska, United States (IATA airport code: GLV)

Heliskiing

He started guiding skiers out of Alyeska Resort, Alaska, using a Hiller helicopter with a Soly conversion.

History of slavery in Alaska

Whereas the continental United States mostly saw enslavement of Africans brought across the Atlantic Ocean, in Alaska indigenous people, and some whites, enslaved indigenous people from other tribes.

John R. Pillion

In Congress, he was most notable as an opponent of statehood for both Hawaii and Alaska.

John Ronald Brown

Brown continued to practice medicine outside of California, but was successively barred from practicing in Hawaii, Alaska and the island of Saint Lucia.

KAMP

KAMP-LP, a low-power radio station (92.9 FM) licensed to St. Michael, Alaska, United States

Katey Walter

Walter, who is fluent in Russian, works as project coordinator at Chersky for joint Russian-U.S. projects over the International Polar Year, aiming to network arctic observatories in Alaska and Russia for long term monitoring of climate change in cold regions.

KBBO

KBBO-FM, a radio station (92.1 FM) licensed to Houston, Alaska, United States

KSWD

KSEW, a radio station (950 AM) licensed to Seward, Alaska, United States, which used the call sign KSWD from September 1991 to May 2008

Lituya

MV Lituya, shuttle ferry for the Alaska Marine Highway System

Luzula wahlenbergii

Luzula wahlenbergii has a relatively wide distribution, growing across Arctic Eurasia, far-east Russia (including Transbaikal), Alaska, Greenland, Canada and the mountains of Scandinavia.

Mountain Village

Mountain Village, Alaska, city in Wade Hampton Census Area, Alaska, United States

MS Oosterdam

The ship has been alternating fall/winter cruises along the Mexican Riviera and summer in Alaska.

Music in High Places: Live in Alaska

Music in High Places: Live in Alaska is a live DVD by the Goo Goo Dolls.

Office of Territorial Affairs

The first Director of Territories was Ernest Gruening, who served from 1934 to 1939, and later served as the territorial governor of Alaska and then as one of the first senators elected from Alaska upon statehood.

Outlying Areas Senate Presidents Caucus

The Outlying Areas Senate Presidents Caucus is an informal legislative organization created in 2007 by leaders of the Senates of the U.S. states of Alaska and Hawai'i and the United States territories of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Northern Marianas Islands.

PAPR

Prospect Creek Airport (ICAO location indicator: PAPR), in Prospect Creek, Alaska, United States

Randy Wayne White

White has traveled extensively and participated in a wide variety of adventures, including dog sledding in Alaska, helping to re-establish Little League baseball in Cuba, and ferrying Cuban refugees to safety during the Mariel boatlift.

Robert R. Coats

As part of the Alaska Branch of the USGS, he continued working in Alaska, mapping in the Chichagof, Anikovik, Nome, Solomon, Kigluaik and Kobuk River areas, among others.

Russian colonization of the Americas

Eager to release themselves of the burden, the Russians sold Fort Ross in 1842, and in 1867, after less than a month of negotiations, the United States accepted Emperor Alexander II's offer to sell Alaska.

Scopula frigidaria

It is found from Fennoscandia to the Kamchatka Peninsula and in northern North America, where it occurs across the boreal forest region, from Alaska across the Northwest Territories and Nunavut to Newfoundland, and in the mountains south to southern Wisconsin, Alberta and British Columbia.

Seguam

Seguam Island, an island in the Andreanof Islands in the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.

Stanley T. Adams

As a civilian, Adams lived in Alaska and worked as an administrator for the Internal Revenue Service there.

Stone sheep

Stone's Sheep are primarily found in Northern British Columbia and can often be seen by travellers licking minerals along the side of the Alaska Highway in areas such as Summit Lake, Stone Mountain Provincial Park and Muncho Lake Provincial Park.

Thayer's Gull

Thayer's Gull (Larus thayeri) is a large gull native to North America that breeds in the Arctic islands of Canada and winters primarily on the Pacific coast, from southern Alaska to the Gulf of California, though there are also wintering populations on the Great Lakes and the upper Mississippi River.

Tulsequah River

An Alaska organization, Rivers Without Borders, has been working to gain legislative protection for the Taku River on the Alaska side, an effort driven in part by the mine's waste flowing into the Tulsequah River.

U.S. Route 29 in the District of Columbia

Various alignments of Route 29 used to exist, including segments along New Hampshire Avenue NW, Dupont Circle, 16th Street NW, and Alaska Avenue NW.

Upis ceramboides

It has over the years have disappeared from southern Sweden and is now only locally in the Norrland coast (Västerbotten and Norrbotten) as well as Canada and Alaska.

Vela Uniform

Vela Uniform incorporated seven underground nuclear tests in the continental United States and Alaska from October 1963 to July 1971.