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HISTORY |
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Alaska has been inhabited for longer than anywhere else in the
Americas; it was here, across the broad plains of the "land bridge" that
is now submerged below the Bering Sea, that humans first reached the "New
World," most likely around 14,000 years ago. These first settlers can be
classified into four groups, which lived within well-defined regions
until whites arrived. The Aleut , in the inhospitable Aleutian Islands,
built underground homes and hunted sea mammals such as walrus for food
and clothing, while the nomadic Athabascan herded caribou in the
Interior. The warrior Tlingit lived in the warmer coastal regions of the
southeast, where food was plentiful, in contrast to the Eskimos (or,
more correctly, Yupik and Inupiat), who inhabited the northwestern coast,
living off fish and larger marine life. Descendants of all these groups
remain in Alaska today; a few live in much the same way as their
ancestors, though most have been integrated into the modern American way
through conquest, rape, marriage and religion.
In 1741, Danish explorer Vitus Bering , working for the Tsar of Russia,
became the first Caucasian to set foot on Alaskan soil and found huge
numbers of fur seals and sea otters - whose treasured pelts were made
into hats. Russians, and later Britons and Spaniards, joined in the
ensuing slaughter, both of the otters and the Aleut, who were enslaved
and forced to hunt on behalf of the fur traders. By 1799 the Russians
had established their Alaskan capital at present-day Sitka, pushed down
the coast as far as northern California and, in the process, decimated
the sea otter colonies.
During the 1860s, limited returns and domestic economic problems forced
Russia to sell its lands to America. On October 18, 1867, Secretary of
State William Seward purchased what was disparagingly known as "
Seward's Folly " or "Seward's Icebox" for $7.2 million - less than 2¢
per acre. Alaska soon turned out to be a literal gold mine with major
discoveries at Juneau (1880), Nome (1898), and Fairbanks (1902). With
logging companies and commercial fishing operations also descending upon
Alaska, the government began to take a more active interest in its
affairs and in 1959 Alaska became the 49th state .
Alaska's next boom followed the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay on the
Arctic Ocean, and fortune-seekers headed to Alaska in the mid-1970s to
build the trans-Alaska pipeline . Today, Alaska still derives about
eighty percent of its wealth from oil and gas; indeed, each resident
receives an annual dividend check of almost $2000. But the state is
still in economic transition and continues to be prone to extreme boom-and-bust
cycles. Once lucrative fishing and lumber industries are fast giving way
to tourism as a source of income, and the ethical question of how best
to use Alaskan lands in the future has led to bitter controversy, not
least over the oil reserves under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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