Cruising Alaska
ALASKA, THE LAST FRONTIER! The word Alaska means greatland or mainland. US Secretary of State William H. Seward bought Alaska in 1867 from Russia for mere $7,200,000 or about 2 cents an acre. He sure got his pennies' worth for at the time many Americans thought of it as just a worthless big piece of land.
Ha-ha....calling the wilderness of frozen tundra Seward's icebox and Seward's Folly. Ha-ha....Prospectors discovered natural gas south of Point Barrow in 1949, and petroleum at Umiat in 1951. Geologists made an oil discovery on the Kenai Peninsula in 1957 - more than 40,000,000 acres of oil and gas land. With skyrocketing gas prices, many politicians in the Republican Party are calling for more exploration and drilling. But pro-environmetalist Democrats are against it.
Alaska joined the Union on January 3, 1959, becoming the largest (twice as big as Texas) and the last of the 50 states to join in 47 years. About 1/6 the size of the rest of the United States, the permafrost region is a 586,000 square miles of plains, islands, basins of icebergs and polar bears, active volcanoes and mountains, the highest of which in North America is Mt. McKinley, rising 20,320 feet. Juneau where many Filipinos live is the capital. A great-lolo of mine once worked in a salmon fishery.
The original people of Alaska are the Aleut, Eskimos (aka Inuits), and Tlingit, Tsimshian, Haida and Athapaskan Indians. The Russians coming from Siberia were the first White settlers and their descendants live in Sitka, Kodiak, and the Aleutian Islands (Attu and Kiska) which were invaded by the Japanese during World War II. It scared the hell out of the Americans they built air force, navy, and army installations as last holdouts. Still, the ubiquitous totem poles are something to behold.
The Mendenhall Glacier which is more than a mile wide can be reached by highways. The roads connect the Kenai Peninsula, Anchorage, Valdez, and Fairbanks with neighboring Canada.
ALAS!The bridge to nowhere in Alaska went nowhere but there are many ways to beat it - celebritechs Vicky and Cora went cruising last summer. Alaska is a paradise for big-game hunters, outdoor lovers and coldblooded visitors. The Inland Passage from Seattle, Washington to Juneau and Skagway is a scenic wonder for the two lab techs.
Fishing is the main industry among many others. Salmons, halibuts, King crabs, Dungeness crabs, shrimps, and razor clams are the catches of the day and processed and packed in cannery plants on the southern and southeastern coasts.
A Celebrity Cruise Ship crew member showed a giant live starfish to starstruck Vicky, Cora, and other cruisers.
07082008
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