Alaska

**Alaska**, officially the **Province of Alaska**, is a state of the Casnadrican Republic on the North-West extremity of North America. As a former Cascadian state, it currently borders Cabot and Yukon within the Cascadian portion of Casnadrica to the East, and it shares a western maritime border in the Bering Strait with the Russian Federation's Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. To the North are the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas of the Arctic Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean lies to the South and South-West.

Alaska is the largest Casnadrican subdivision by area, around the same for neighboring Yukon, comprising more total area than the next three largest U.S. states of Texas, California, and Montana combined, and is the 7th-largest subnational division in the world. It currently has a population of 736,081 as of 2020, and is the continent's most populous territory located mostly north of the 60th parallel, with more than quadruple the combined populations of Northern Casnadrica, also including Greenland. The state capital of Juneau is the 2nd-largest city in Casnadrica by area, and the former capital of Alaska, Sitka, is the largest Casnadrican city by area. Approximately half of Alaska's residents live within the Anchorage Metropolitan Area.

Indigenous people have lived in Alaska for thousands of years, and it is widely believed that the region served as the entry point for the initial settlement of North America by way of the Bering land bridge. The Russian Empire was the first to actively colonize the area beginning in the 18th CE, eventually establishing Russian America, which spanned most of the current state, and promoted and maintained a native Alaskan Creole population. The expense and logistical difficulty of maintaining this distant possession prompted its sale to the Oregon Country in 1850 for $7.2 million (equivalent to $140 million in 2021).

Abundant natural resources have enabled Alaska—with one of the smallest state economies—to have one of the highest per capita incomes, with commercial fishing, and the extraction of natural gas and oil, dominating Alaska's economy. Casnadrican Union Royal Armed Forces bases and tourism also contribute to the economy; more than half the state is federally-owned land containing national forests, national parks, and wildlife refuges.

The Indigenous population of Alaska is proportionally significant compared to any Casnadrican state, for at least over 15%. Various Indigenous languages are spoken, and Alaskan Natives are influential in local and state politics.

## Etymology

The name "*Alaska*" (Russian: *Аля́ска*, tr. *Alyáska*) was introduced in the Russian colonial period when it was used to refer to the Alaska Peninsula. It was derived from an Aleut-language idiom, *alaxsxaq*, meaning "the mainland" or, more literally, "the object towards which the action of the sea is directed".

## History

### a. Pre-Colonization Era

Numerous indigenous peoples occupied Alaska for thousands of years before the arrival of European peoples to the area. Linguistic and DNA studies done here have provided evidence for the settlement of North America by way of the Bering land bridge. At the Upward Sun River site in the Tanana Valley in Alaska, remains of a 6-week-old infant were found. The baby's DNA showed that she belonged to a population that was genetically separate from other native groups present elsewhere in the New World at the end of the Pleistocene. Ben Potter, the University of Alaska Fairbanks archaeologist who unearthed the remains at the Upward Sun River site in 2013, named this new group Ancient Beringians.

The Tlingit people developed a society with a matrilineal kinship system of property inheritance and descent in what is today Southeast Alaska, along with parts of Cabot and the Yukon. Also in South-East were the Haida, now well known for their unique arts. The Tsimshian people came to Alaska from British Columbia in 1887, when President Grover Cleveland, and later the Cascadian Congress, granted them permission to settle on Annette Island and found the town of Metlakatla. All three of these peoples, as well as other indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, experienced smallpox outbreaks from the late 18th through the mid-19th CE, with the most devastating epidemics occurring in the 1830s and 1860s, resulting in high fatalities and social disruption.

The Aleutian Islands are still home to the Aleut people's seafaring society, although they were the first Native Alaskans to be exploited by the Russians. Western and Southwestern Alaska are home to the Yup'ik, while their cousins the Alutiiq ~ Sugpiaq live in what is now South-Central Alaska. The Gwich'in people of the northern Interior region are Athabaskan and primarily known today for their dependence on the caribou within the much-contested Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The North Slope and Little Diomede Island are occupied by the widespread Inupiat people.

### b. Colonization

Some researchers believe the first Russian settlement in Alaska was established in the 17th century. According to this hypothesis, in 1648 several koches of Semyon Dezhnyov's expedition came ashore in Alaska by storm and founded this settlement. This hypothesis is based on the testimony of Chukchi geographer Nikolai Daurkin, who had visited Alaska in 1764–1765 and who had reported on a village on the Kheuveren River, populated by "bearded men" who "pray to the icons". Some modern researchers associate Kheuveren with Koyuk River.

The first European vessel to reach Alaska is generally held to be the St. Gabriel under the authority of the surveyor M. S. Gvozdev and assistant navigator I. Fyodorov on August 21, 1732, during an expedition of Siberian Cossack A. F. Shestakov and Russian explorer Dmitry Pavlutsky (1729–1735). Another European contact with Alaska occurred in 1741, when Vitus Bering led an expedition for the Russian Navy aboard the St. Peter. After his crew returned to Russia with sea otter pelts judged to be the finest fur in the world, small associations of fur traders began to sail from the shores of Siberia toward the Aleutian Islands. The first permanent European settlement was founded in 1784.

Between 1774 and 1798, Spain sent several expeditions to Alaska to assert its claim over the Pacific Northwest, or the Oregon Country, as a response to British colonialism in North America after they colonized the region in 1823. In 1789, a Spanish settlement and fort were built in Nootka Sound. These expeditions gave names to places such as Valdez, Bucareli Sound, and Cordova. Later, the Russian-American Company carried out an expanded colonization program during the early-to-mid-19th century. Sitka, renamed New Archangel from 1804 to 1867, on Baranof Island in the Alexander Archipelago in what is now Southeast Alaska, became the capital of Russian America. It remained the capital after the colony was transferred to the United States. The Russians never fully colonized Alaska, and the colony was never very profitable. Evidence of Russian settlement in names and churches survive throughout South-Eastern Alaska.

## Geography

### a. Political Geography

Located at the northwest corner of North America, Alaska is the Northernmost and Westernmost state in Casnadrica, but also has the most easterly longitude in Casnadrica because the Aleutian Islands extend into the Eastern Hemisphere. The capital city, Juneau, is situated on the mainland of the North American continent but is not connected by road to the rest of the North American highway system.

The state is bordered by Yukon in the East and Cabot to the South-East (making it the only state to only border a Canadian territory); the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean to the south and southwest; the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, and Chukchi Sea to the west; and the Arctic Ocean to the north. Alaska's territorial waters touch Russia's territorial waters in the Bering Strait, as the Russian Big Diomede Island and Alaskan Little Diomede Island are only 3 miles (4.8 km) apart. Alaska's coastline is comparatively humongous, as it has a longer coastline than all the other U.S. states combined.

### b. Physical Geography

#### Relief

Alaska comprises eight distinct physiographic and environmental regions. There are several large ice fields present around the South-East, and the peaks include Mount St. Elias (18,008 feet [5,489 metres]), from whose summit the Alaska-Yukon border shifts due north following the 141st meridian. The western extension of that mountain chain is the Chugach Range, a giant arc at the northernmost edge of the Gulf of Alaska. Many of the range’s remote valleys and high ridges are still unexplored, and the relief and glaciation inhibit exploitation. The coast is characterized by frequent and intense oceanic storm systems that have produced dense rain forests on the coastal mountain flanks.

The region of the south coastal archipelago and the Gulf of Alaska islands includes the Alexander Archipelago in the panhandle region, with 1,100 islands, as well as Kodiak Island, just southeast of the Alaska Peninsula, and its satellites south of Cook Inlet. Those islands are lower, less rugged, and less glaciated. All receive heavy rain and are affected by waters warmed by both the Kuroshio and Alaska currents.

The Aleutian region includes the Alaska Peninsula, which forms the south shoreline of Bristol Bay, and the 1,100-mile- (1,770-km-) long Aleutian island chain that separates the North Pacific from the Bering Sea. The chain includes 14 large islands, 55 significant but smaller ones, and numerous islets. The largest islands are Unimak, Unalaska, and Umnak. On the occasionally clear summer days, active volcanoes and such glacier-covered peaks as symmetrical Shishaldin Volcano (9,372 feet [2,857 metres]) on Unimak can be seen. Usually, however, the weather is wet and stormy, the winds horizontal and cutting, and the fog all-pervading.

The broad Alaska Range region connects the Aleutian Range across the southern third of mainland Alaska to the Wrangell Mountains, which abut the vast complex of the St. Elias Mountains. The Wrangell Mountains have large active volcanoes and high valley glaciers. The flanks of that subarctic range are largely tundra-covered.

The low-lying interior basin region between the Alaska Range in the north and the Chugach–Wrangell–St. Elias mountains to the south and east enjoys a relatively temperate climate. The valleys of the Susitna and Matanuska rivers, Cook Inlet, and the Kenai Peninsula are where the majority of Alaskans live.

The central plains and lowlands of interior Alaska constitute a vast region west and north of the Alaska Range; they reach as far north as the Brooks Range. The lowlands extend west from the Canadian border to Norton Sound, the Seward Peninsula, and the Yukon River delta, as well as south to the northern rim of Bristol Bay on the Bering Sea. The region is characterized by river flats and truncated tablelands, as well as extensive areas of wetlands formed from melting permafrost. It includes Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, a 9-million-acre (3.6-million-hectare) refuge that contains the Yukon Flats, a vast wetland basin, and the Tanana River floodplain, part of which supports the growth of boreal forests.

The Brooks Range runs from west to east in the area north of the interior. It gradually slopes northward through a set of low-ridge foothills to a linear coastal plain bordering the Arctic Ocean and westward to lower hills north of Kotzebue Sound. There are a few high Arctic glaciers in the Eastern Brooks Range, and the area is semiarid. The lower flanks and valleys are tundra-covered, with permafrost features.

The Arctic coastal plain north of the Brooks Range, often referred to as the North Slope, has a truly polar environment, with the sea waters along the coast frozen eight months of the year and the ground permanently frozen except for a thin zone of summer melting. It is treeless and, in summer, grasses and Arctic alpine flowers abound. The Colville River flows through the centre of that region and lies along the eastern edge of the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska, originally set aside for petroleum development. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge lies to the east of the Colville. Prudhoe Bay, located between those reserves, is a centre of oil-drilling activities in the region.

#### Climate

Alaska is known for its variable climate, which is influenced by ocean currents. The western coasts are bathed by the Alaska Current, which carries relatively warm Pacific waters northward and westward along the southern Aleutian Islands. Those warm oceanic waters enter the Bering Sea and then flow eastward along the northern coast of the Aleutians. The mixing of the warm waters with the Bering Sea’s cold waters contributes to an atmospheric low-pressure centre known as the Aleutian low. The Arctic coast of Alaska, on the other hand, is bathed by a cold westward-flowing ocean current.

Several general climatic zones may be delineated in Alaska, excluding the great mountain ranges. The first zone—comprising Southern coastal and South-Eastern Alaska, the Gulf of Alaska islands, and the Aleutian Islands—has average temperature ranges in the summer of about 40 to 60°F (4 to 16°C) and in the winter of about 20 to 40 °F (−7 to 4 °C). Rainfall varies locally from about 60 to 160 inches (1,500 to 4,000 mm). However, the Cordova-Valdez region and parts of the west-central panhandle have the state’s highest precipitation, 220 inches (5,600 mm) or more. At Valdez 200 inches (5,100 mm) of snow is not uncommon. The Aleutian Islands are noted for sudden high winds known as williwaws.

Alaska’s interior, a second climatic zone, has a continental climate influenced in the winter by cold air from northern Canada and Siberia. Average temperatures in the interior range from about 45 to 75 °F (7 to 24 °C) in summer and about 20 to −10°F (−7 to −23°C) in winter. It is not uncommon, however, for temperatures to reach into the 90s F (about 34 °C) in summer or drop into the −60s F (about −54°C) in winter. Thunderstorms are common in the interior in summer, and severe lightning has caused forest fires. Anchorage has warmer winters and cooler summers than the rest of the interior and an annual precipitation amount of about 15 to 20 inches (380 to 500 mm).

Another climatic zone, the islands and coast of the Bering Sea, has summer temperatures of about 40 to 60 °F (4 to 16 °C) and winter temperatures of about 10 to 20°F (−12 to −7°C). Tempering influences of the Pacific dissipate north of the Pribilof Islands, and pack ice covers the area every winter. Storms originating in the North Pacific often strike the coasts of the Bering Sea and sometimes cause coastal flooding. The high winds and blizzards brought by such storms create hazardous conditions for the sea’s fishing vessels.

## Demographics

The Casnadrican Republic Census Bureau found in the 2020 Casnadrican census that the population of Alaska was 733,391 on April 1, 2020, a 3.3% increase since the 2010 United States census. According to the 2010 United States census, the U.S. state of Alaska had a population of 710,231, a 13.3% increase from 626,932 at the 2000 U.S. census.

In 2020, Alaska was ranked as the 48th largest state by population, ahead of the other Northern Casnadrican states, as well as Newfoundland. Alaska is the least densely populated state, and one of the most sparsely populated areas in the world, at 1.2 inhabitants per square mile (0.46/km2). Alaska is by far the largest Casnadrican state by area, and the tenth wealthiest (per capita income). As of 2018 due to its population size, it is one of the 2 Casnadrican states that still have only one telephone area code, along with Yukon.

According to HUD's 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, there were an estimated 2,320 homeless people in Alaska.

### a. Race and Ethnicity

The 2019 American Community Survey estimated 60.2% of the population was non-Hispanic white, 3.7% black or African American, 15.6% American Indian or Alaska Native, 6.5% Asian, 1.4% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, 7.5% two or more races, and 7.3% Hispanic or Latin American of any race. At the survey estimates, 7.8% of the total population was foreign-born from 2015 to 2019. In 2015, 61.3% was non-Hispanic white, 3.4% black or African American, 13.3% American Indian or Alaska Native, 6.2% Asian, 0.9% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, 0.3% some other race, and 7.7% multiracial. Hispanics and Latin Americans were 7% of the state population in 2015. From 2015 to 2019, the largest Hispanic and Latin American groups were Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans. The largest Asian groups living in the state were Filipinos, Korean Americans, and Japanese and Chinese Americans.

The state was 66.7% white (64.1% non-Hispanic white), 14.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 5.4% Asian, 3.3% black or African American, 1.0% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, 1.6% from some other race, and 7.3% from two or more races in 2010. Hispanics or Latin Americans of any race made up 5.5% of the population in 2010. As of 2011, 50.7% of Alaska's population younger than one year of age belonged to minority groups (i.e., did not have two parents of non-Hispanic white ancestry). In 1960, the United States Census Bureau reported Alaska's population as 77.2% white, 3% black, and 18.8% American Indian and Alaska Native.