Frequently Asked Questions
Secretary of State William Seward negotiated the purchase in 1867 for $7.2 million (about 2 cents per acre). Critics called it "Seward's Folly" and "Seward's Icebox." Russia sold because it couldn't defend the territory and wanted to keep it from Britain. The deal proved spectacularly wise — Alaska's gold, oil, fisheries, and strategic location have been worth trillions.
In 1896, gold was discovered in Canada's Klondike region. By 1897-1898, an estimated 100,000 people set out for the gold fields, with most passing through Skagway or Dyea in Alaska's Inside Passage. Stampeders had to haul a year's worth of supplies over the Chilkoot or White Pass before reaching the Yukon River. Visit Skagway's Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park to walk in their footsteps.
Alaska has 11 distinct Indigenous cultural groups: Inupiat, Yupik, Cup'ik, St. Lawrence Island Yupik, Aleut/Unangan, Alutiiq/Sugpiaq, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and Athabascan. Each has distinct languages, traditions, and territories. The Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage ($25) is the best introduction to all 11 groups in one visit.
Yes — there's a free public viewpoint near Fairbanks where you can see and touch the 48-inch diameter pipeline. The pipeline runs 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic coast to the port of Valdez, crossing three mountain ranges and over 800 rivers. Built 1974-1977, it was the largest private construction project in history at the time.
Japan bombed Dutch Harbor in June 1942 and then occupied the islands of Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian chain — the only foreign occupation of U.S. soil since the War of 1812. The Aleutian Islands campaign lasted until August 1943. The Aleutian WWII National Historic Area in Unalaska preserves bunkers, ruins, and tells the story of the evacuated Aleut people.
The Erskine House in Kodiak, built around 1808 as a Russian fur storage warehouse, is the oldest surviving building in Alaska. Now the Baranov Museum ($7), it chronicles Kodiak's journey through Alutiiq, Russian, and American periods.