Alaska

C

Government and Politics

Alaska is governed under a constitution adopted in 1956 (three years before it became a state), as amended. The chief executive is a governor, who is popularly elected to a four-year term and may not serve more than two consecutive terms. The lieutenant-governor, the only other statewide-elected official, succeeds the chief executive on the governor’s death, removal from office, or incapacity to serve. The governor appoints Cabinet officers, who are called commissioners. Legislative authority is vested in a House of Representatives of 40 members popularly elected to two-year terms and a Senate of 20 members popularly elected to four-year terms. At a national level, Alaska is represented in the US Congress by two senators and one representative. The state casts three electoral votes in presidential elections (see electoral college).

Since statehood no single party has dominated politics in Alaska. Although Republicans outnumber Democrats among registered voters, non-partisan registrants are in the majority. Control of the state governorship has been closely balanced between the two major parties; in the state legislature, Republicans tend to dominate the Senate, while the Democrats usually control a majority of the House of Representatives. In presidential elections, the state has generally supported the Republican candidate. The Libertarian party has a significant following, and Libertarians have won election to the state legislature.

In the 2006 elections Republican candidate Don Young was returned from the state. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Ted Stevens (both Republicans) represent Alaska. Republican Sarah Palin was elected state governor in November 2006.

IV

History

The original inhabitants of Alaska included four ethnological subdivisions: the Aleuts of the western Alaska Peninsula, who were expert mariners; the Inuit, inhabiting the coastal area from Bristol Bay to Point Demarcation on the Arctic, who sailed in kayaks to hunt whale, seal, and walrus and to fish, and who deftly carved ivory into tools, utensils, and ornaments; the Tlingit-Haida people of south-eastern Alaska, great traders and canoe builders who lived from the sea; and the Athabascan tribes of the interior, who caught salmon and hunted land animals.

A

Russian Alaska

The first Europeans to visit Alaska were part of a Russian expedition led by the Danish navigator Vitus Bering, who landed on the southern coast in 1741. Bering and many crewmen died on the return voyage; the remaining crew reached Russia with otter skins in 1742, prompting ruthless promshlenniki (“fur traders”) to swarm into the Aleutians. In 1784 Grigory Shelekhov colonized Kodiak Island; in 1786 Gerasim Pribilof located the opulent Seal Islands. The Russian-American Company was granted a monopoly over the fur trade in 1799.

Despite penetrations by Spanish, British, French, and American explorers and traders, dating from the 1770s, Russian control over Alaska lasted until 1867. In the 1850s, a decline in fur profits and a threatened invasion by the British from Canada motivated Russia to consider selling Alaska to the United States, but the American Civil War delayed the purchase—astutely negotiated by Secretary of State William H. Seward—until 1867.

B

Alaska Under the United States

Army troops garrisoned in Alaska from 1867 to 1877 constituted the first US presence there. After US warships arrived in 1879, the commanding officers of those ships exercised de facto jurisdiction over Alaska until Congress established a civil and judicial district in 1884.

Salmon canning became a major industry by the 1880s; in the following decade the Alaskan Gold Rush nearly doubled the population and attracted capital. In 1906 Alaska was given a delegate to Congress; in 1912 it gained territorial status. Its failure to achieve self-government hindered economic development, however, and the population declined between 1910 and 1930. New Deal measures of the 1930s improved housing, created public works, stimulated mining, and demonstrated greater agricultural potential for Alaska.

During World War II, the strategic importance of Alaska was belatedly recognized. In June 1942 the Japanese occupied the islands of Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians; it took US forces 15 months to dislodge them. To circumvent a threat to Alaskan sea-lanes, the army built the Alaska Highway, connecting Alaska with British Columbia, in 1942.

The Cold War with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) led to increased military construction in 1947 and the start of the radar stations of the DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line. The fishing industry, once the mainstay of the Alaskan economy, declined by the late 1940s. Between 1954 and 1959 the forest products industry, the first major year-round industry, expanded rapidly. The discovery of oil on the Kenai Peninsula in 1957 gave new encouragement to the economy.

C

Statehood

Alaska officially became the 49th state on January 3, 1959. Tourism soon developed into a major industry, and a state ferry system was authorized in 1961.

The discovery of vast oil deposits on the Alaska North Slope in 1968 resulted in the construction of the approximately 1,300-km (800-mi) Trans-Alaska Pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the ice-free port of Valdez, where the first oil arrived in July 1977. Oil revenues enabled the state to abolish its personal income tax and to distribute annual cash dividends to all state residents.

In 1980 Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which excluded more than 42 million hectares (104 million acres) in the state from commercial development. Many Alaskans opposed what they felt were unjustifiable federal attempts to limit exploitation of the state’s resources, but calls for secession were rejected. One of the worst environmental disasters in the history of the United States occurred in March 1989, when an Exxon tanker, the Exxon Valdez, ran aground in Prince William Sound, spilling more than 38 million litres (10 million gallons) of oil. Over 1,600 km (1,000 mi) of coastline was contaminated and thousands of animals died. Many species have still not recovered to their pre-1989 levels.