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EXPLORER ALASKA |
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Wedged between the two arms of Cook Inlet and the imposing Chugach
Mountains, ANCHORAGE is home to over forty percent of Alaska's
population, and serves as the transportation center for the whole state.
This sprawling city on the edge of one of the world's great wildernesses
often gets a bad press from those who live elsewhere in Alaska - derided
as being "just half an hour from Alaska" - but it has its attractions,
and with its beautiful setting can make a pleasant one- or two-day
stopover.
By the time Captain James Cook came up what is now Cook Inlet in 1778,
in search of a Northwest Passage to the Atlantic, Russian fur trappers
had already started to settle the area, trading copper and iron for fish
and furs with the Native Americans. Though Cook was sure that the inlet
was not the Passage, he sent boats out in a southeasterly direction to
investigate. When they were forced to turn back by the severe tides,
Cook named this gloriously scenic stretch Turnagain Arm .
Anchorage itself began life in 1915 as a tent city for construction
workers on the Alaska Railroad. During the 1930s, hopefuls fleeing the
Depression came pouring in from the Lower 48, and World War II - and the
construction of the Alaska Highway - further boosted the city's size and
importance. The opening of the airport established Anchorage -
equidistant between New York and Tokyo - as the "Crossroads of the
World," and statehood in 1959 brought in yet more optimistic adventurers
The City
Travelers eager to rush off into the "real" Alaska tend to overlook
cosmopolitan Anchorage - a blend of old and new, urban blight and rural
parks - but there is plenty to see, and it's worth spending some time
here experiencing big-city Alaska |
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