X-Nico

80 unusual facts about Alaska


30 Days of Night: Blood Trails

We come back to when George is being arrested and discovers the message reveals the vampires plan – a "feeding" in Barrow, Alaska, which will take place the following night.

56th Training Squadron

On 20 June 1942, the air echelon of the 56th took its newly assigned Bell P-39 Airacobras to Nome, Alaska, where it served in combat against the Japanese forces that invaded the Aleutian Islands during the summer of 1942.

Alaska Communications System

The ACS also provided a vital lifeline - sometimes quite literally - to the many remote and almost inaccessible communities across Alaska: it enabled the icebound city of Nome to alert the outside world about a diphtheria outbreak which led to the successful 1925 serum run to Nome.

Alaska gubernatorial election, 2006

Incumbent Frank Murkowski (R), first elected governor in 2002, ran for reelection but was defeated in a landslide in the Republican primary by former Wasilla mayor Sarah Palin on August 22, 2006.

Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act

The towns of Eagle and Glennallen, both in the shadow of new monuments, produced official proclamations stating that the towns would not support NPS authorities, not enforce NPS regulations, and would shelter individuals who broke the regulations.

Residents in the Cantwell area undertook a large act of civil disobedience known as the Great Denali Trespass — they went into the park, fired off guns, made campfires, and conducted various other activities prohibited under Federal regulations.

Alaska Nellie's Homestead

A post office opened in the area in 1924; Nellie was the first postmistress, and the post office was named Lawing in her honor.

Alaska-St. Elias Range tundra

This is a largely unspoilt environment home to large predators, although there is some development associated with tourism, especially at Kantishna near Denali Park, and some mining activity including the abandoned copper mining camp of Kennecott, Alaska in the Wrangell Mountains and coal mining at Nabesna and Healy, Alaska.

Alaska's Flag

At that time Benny was a thirteen-year-old seventh-grader of Russian-Aleut and Swedish descent, studying at the Territorial School at Seward and a resident of the Jesse Lee Mission Home.

Anna Marly

They originally moved to South America before finally settling in Lazy Mountain, Alaska, she and her husband eventually becoming US citizens.

Anthony W. England

England helped develop and use radars to probe the Moon on Apollo 17 and glaciers in Washington and Alaska.

Arnold J. Isbell

Isbell was promoted to Captain in 1942 while in command of the Naval Air Station, Sitka, Alaska.

Balto

The serum was transported by train from Anchorage to Nenana, where the first musher embarked as part of a relay aimed at delivering the needed serum to Nome.

Birthday Eve

Though the previous single, You represented one of the United States, Alaska, this single's cover represents the lower 48 states of the United States of America.

Bowieite

Bowieite is a rhodium-iridium-platinum sulfide mineral (Rh,Ir,Pt)2S3, found in platinum-alloy nuggets from Goodnews Bay, Alaska.

César Cascabel

On their way from Port Clarence the travellers unfortunately end up on a floating iceberg that drifts to the Lyakhovsky Islands in Arctic Ocean.

Christine Lund

Lund has two grown daughters, and currently runs a small general store in Baranof Warm Springs, Alaska.

Dale Nichols

Upon leaving his post at Britannica, Nichols spent the remainder of his life traveling, splitting the majority of his time between Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alaska, and Guatemala.

David W. Márquez

On March 31, 2005, Governor Frank Murkowski appointed Márquez as Attorney General for the State of Alaska.

Delta River

Fed by the Tangle Lakes of the Alaska Range, the river flows north to meet the larger river near Big Delta.

Deltana, Alaska

Deltana is a census-designated place (CDP) in Southeast Fairbanks Census Area, Alaska, United States.

Drake Olson

After retiring from racing, Olson became a glacier pilot in Alaska.

Elisabeth de Stroumillo

De Stroumillo's work was varied and detailed, including accounts of travels in Alaska, India and much of Europe, in particular France.

Ethan Berkowitz

He was first elected to represent District 26 (Anchorage) in 1996, and then re-elected in 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004.

F. Stuart Chapin III

Usibelli Award (top researcher in all fields; Univ. of Alaska) 2000

Fairbanks North Star Borough School District

The Fairbanks North Star Borough School District is a public school district based in Fairbanks, Alaska (USA).

Fumimaro Konoe

Roosevelt told Ambassador Nomura that he would like to see more details of Konoe's proposal, and he suggested that Juneau, Alaska, might be a good spot for a meeting.

Gold mining in Alaska

The KGB includes all or parts of the historic Aniak/Tuluksak, Anvik, Bethel, Goodnews Bay, Iditarod-Flat, Innoko, Marshall, McGrath, Ruby, and Tolstoi mining districts, as well as newly realized gold-rich areas.

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway

It would follow one of the routes surveyed by Sandford Fleming from Winnipeg to Port Simpson at the end of the Portland Canal which formed part of the boundary between British Columbia and Alaska.

Harold Gatty

Post and Gatty crossed the Atlantic in a record time of 16 hours and 17 minutes and continued to Berlin, Moscow, and Khabarovsk, then crossed the Bering Sea, landing on the beach near Solomon, Alaska, then to Edmonton, Alberta, arriving finally back at Roosevelt Field after 8 days, 15 hours, and 51 minutes.

Harry Karstens

He also carried freight and mail with Charles McGonagall via dog teams among the frontier towns of Fairbanks, Valdez and Kantishna, being paid $75 per month.

Iditarod Trail

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, named after the now-abandoned town of Iditarod, commemorates the last great goldrush in America to the Iditarod gold fields and the critical role that dogs played in the settlement and development of Alaska.

Ilokano language

Called the "Manong" generation, the Ilocano became the first Filipino ethnic group to emigrate en masse to the United States, where they formed sizable communities in Hawaii, California, Washington and Alaska.

J. P. Hubrick

A resident of McCarthy, Alaska, Hubrick started the town's first newspaper, the Cooper Bee in February 1916.

John W. Nordstrom

While working at a sawmill he read a newspaper account of the discovery of gold in the Klondike and headed to Alaska to make his fortune.

Josh Phelps

Phelps is the all-time leader in home runs for a player born in Alaska.

Kalifornsky

Kalifornsky, Alaska, a census-designated place (CDP) in Kenai Peninsula Borough

Kathleen Bryson

Bryson spent the first two years of her life in the Arctic village of Wainwright and, when she was three, her family moved to Kenai, where she lived until she was 18, whereupon she moved to Stockholm to study archaeology.

Killer whale attacks on humans

In August 2005, while swimming in four feet of water in Helm Bay, near Ketchikan, Alaska, a 12-year-old boy named Ellis Miller was "bumped" in the shoulder by a 25-foot transient killer whale.

Knik River

The term "knik," present in the names of the river, the arm of Cook Inlet, and the glacier, as well as the communities of Knik-Fairview and Knik River, derives from the Inupiaq word igniq ("fire").

KSUA

KUAC, the Fairbanks North Star Borough's public radio station, went on the air October 1, 1962, operating out of the Constitution Hall studios KSUA now occupies.

Lee McKinley

Applying for a homestead on land in what is now Butte, Alaska, he cleared an airstrip on the property and began flying to rural communities throughout Alaska.

Les Nessman

While Sanders simply flew into Anchorage to make the appearance, Les took the wrong bus, wound up in Texas, hitchhiked from there to North Dakota and then to Great Slave Lake, rode with a bush pilot to Whitehorse, bought a motorscooter, was sighted near Tok, was arrested for a minor traffic infraction, and then was bailed out of jail by the station.

Lockheed C-69 Constellation

The other C-69 aircraft were used for different trials such as the seventh C-69 being flown to Fairbanks, Alaska for testing in Arctic conditions.

Magic Kingdom on Ice

A Disneyliner airplane lands in the Magic Kingdom with a planeload of tourists, all happy to be there, save for one: Mr. Lito, who had inadvertently boarded the wrong plane; he originally planned to go to Hawaii, with a connecting flight in Alaska.

Marjory Collins

In 1944, Collins worked freelance for a construction company in Alaska before travelling to Africa and Europe on government and commercial assignments.

Matsumae clan

Like several other Japanese before them, they had been found in the Aleutians, off the coast of Alaska, by Russian sailors and had asked to be brought back to Japan.

Mountain Village

Mountain Village, Alaska, city in Wade Hampton Census Area, Alaska, United States

Napaimute, Alaska

George Hoffman would soon relocated to Georgetown, and the name of the village was changed to Napaimute.

National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska

The NPRA was created by President Warren G. Harding in 1923 as Naval Petroleum Reserve Number 4 during a time when the United States was converting its Navy to run on oil rather than coal.

Nenana Ice Classic

The Nenana Ice Classic is an annual ice pool contest held in Nenana, Alaska.

Noel, Missouri

Noel is one of a few "Christmas Cities" in America, along with North Pole, Alaska, Christmas, Michigan, Santa Claus, Indiana and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Onalaska, Wisconsin

In Alaska, the modern day city of Unalaska and Unalaska Island are linked to the Onalaskas through Thomas Campbell's poem.

PFD Otter

PFD Otter is a spokesman and advocate for water safety, who spearheads the "Kids Don't Float" program created in Homer, Alaska.

Princess Tours

Princess Tours runs ten cars a day (five north, five south) from Anchorage to Fairbanks on the Alaska Railroad, stopping at Talkeetna, Denali, and occasionally Whittier.

Prospect Creek

Prospect Creek, Alaska, site of the coldest US temperature observation (-80°F)

Red Dog Mine

Red Dog Mine, Alaska, the census-designated place that includes the mine

Rubicon Minerals

In September 1999 Rubicon announced encouraging assay results from a large sulphide discovery on the Palmer project near Haines, Alaska.

Scouting in Alaska

This council was started in 1925 by a handful of girls in Fairbanks, Alaska headed by Jessie Bloom.

Siberian Husky

Dogs from the Anadyr River and surrounding regions were imported into Alaska from 1908 (and for the next two decades) during the gold rush for use as sled dogs, especially in the "All-Alaska Sweepstakes," a 408-mile (657-km) distance dog sled race from Nome, to Candle, and back.

Single-wire earth return

In 1981 a high-power 8.5 mile prototype SWER line was successfully installed from a diesel plant in Bethel to Napakiak in Alaska, United States.

Slana River

It begins near Mount Kimball in the Alaska Range and flows generally south to meet the larger river near Slana.

SpazzStick

It was created by Richie Holschen, the only police officer in the remote Alaskan village of Kaktovik, who needed to protect his lips and remain alert in an area so cold that coffee freezes.

Stryker

The 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Fairbanks, Alaska's Fort Wainwright began its initial deployment in August 2005 to Summer 2006.

Study of Environmental Arctic Change

Study of Environmental ARctic CHange (SEARCH) is an interdisciplinary, multiscale program, managed at the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. in Fairbanks, Alaska, USA.

Telida, Alaska

Many families moved to Takotna during the school year and lived in Telida only during summer months.

Teslin Tlingit Council

Today, Tlingit is spoken in the Yukon communities of Teslin and Carcross, in the Atlin area of British Columbia, and in coastal settlements stretching along the Alaskan panhandle from Yakutat to Ketchikan.

Thomas M. Anderson

In February 1897 Anderson and 100 soldiers of the 14th set up a base in Skagway and Dyea, Alaska at the start of the Klondike gold rush to protect miners along the trails into Canada as well as to keep watch on the border.

Transportation in North America

The road network extends from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, and Anchorage, Alaska, in the extreme northwest, to Sydney, Nova Scotia, Cartwright, Newfoundland and Labrador, Blanc Sablon and Natashquan, Quebec, in the extreme east, all the way to Yaviza, Panama, in the extreme south.

United States Senate election in Alaska, 2004

Mike Miller, younger brother of Terry Miller, involved in the family business in North Pole, also served in the Alaska House of Representatives and Alaska Senate from 1983 to 2001 and was the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 1994

USS Galena

Cities, towns, and villages with the name exist in Kansas, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, and Alaska.

Walrus Island, Pribilof Islands

This islet should not be confused with the Walrus Islands in the Walrus Islands State Game Sanctuary, located close to Hagemeister Island (in the Dillingham Census Area), nor with Walrus Island located in the southeastern shores of the Bristol Bay (in the Aleutians East Borough).

Ward Cove

The town of Ward Cove (also Wacker, Wacker City, or Wards Cove) is located on the waterway.

White-cheeked Starling

There is a record from Homer, Alaska in 1998 which probably arrived with a ship (West 2002).

William Judge

He served for two years at Holy Cross Mission, on the Yukon River, before being assigned to a smaller mission at Nulato, Alaska.

William P. Upshur

Major General Upshur died from injuries suffered in a July 21, 1943 airplane crash near Sitka, Alaska, while on an inspection tour of his command which included Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands.

William Riker

We learn that Riker grew up in Valdez, Alaska; that his mother, Elizabeth, died when he was two years old; and that he was raised by his father until the age of 15, when he left home.

William S. Stevens

A resident of Narberth, Pennsylvania, Stevens died at age 60 on December 8, 2008 of a heart attack while working in Anchorage, Alaska.

Woman's Christian Temperance Union

She started the Bethesda Day Nursery for working mothers, two kindergarten schools, the Anchorage Mission for erring girls, two dispensaries, two industrial schools, an employment bureau, Sunday schools, and temperance reading rooms.

Women's Bay

Womens Bay, Alaska, a census-designated place in Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska, in the United States


Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve

Father Bernard R. Hubbard was a Jesuit priest and professor of geology at Santa Clara University in California, who had been exploring Alaska's volcanoes and glaciers every summer season since 1927 and writing about them in best-selling books and in publications such as National Geographic and the Saturday Evening Post.

Craig Stowers

After earning his law degree, Stowers served as a law clerk for U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Robert Boochever and then went on to serve as a law clerk for Alaska Supreme Court Justice Warren Matthews.

Danny Chen

Pvt. Chen served with C Company, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, which is based in Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

Dennis Stock

In the mid-1970s, he traveled to Japan and the Far East, and also produced numerous features series, such as photographs of contrasting regions, like Hawaii and Alaska.

Devil's Thumb

Devils Thumb, a mountain on the Alaska–British Columbia border

Dick Wilmarth

In a 2001 interview with the Anchorage Daily News, Wilmarth said he saw the 1973 Iditarod as not really a sled dog race but more of a time to enjoy the Alaska wilderness with friends.

Digital line graph

DLGs are distributed at three different scales: large-scale, which normally correspond to the USGS 7.5- by 7.5-minute, 1:24,000 and 1:25,000-scale topographic quadrangle map series, 1:63,360-scale for Alaska and 1:30,000-scale for Puerto Rico; intermediate scale, which are derived from the USGS 30- by 60-minute, 1:100,000-scale map series; and small-scale, which are derived from the USGS 1:2,000,000-scale sectional maps of the National Atlas of the United States.

District of Alaska

In 1902 the Alaska Railroad began to be built, which would connect from Seward to Fairbanks by 1914, though Alaska still has no railroad connecting it to the lower 48 states today.

Drift River Terminal Facility

It is located in Alaska along Cook Inlet, at the terminus of the Drift River, an historic floodplain of nearby volcanic Mount Redoubt.

Drunken trees

Al Gore cited drunken trees caused by melting permafrost in Alaska as evidence of global warming, as part of his presentation in the 2006 documentary film An Inconvenient Truth.

Evstratii Delarov

Delarov participated in Solov'ev's 1764 attacks on the Umnak-Unalaska Aleut alliance, which were carried out in revenge for the 1762 Fox Islands revolt—a coordinated Aleut attack on four Russian vessels and several shore parties, during which over 300 Russians were killed.

Frank Prewitt

In thirteen years of public service to the State of Alaska, Prewitt served as the Director of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute, Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Corrections and Assistant Alaska Attorney General.

Frederick Schwatka

Schwatka Lake in Whitehorse, Yukon, is named after him, as is Mount Schwatka, Alaska.

George Parks

George Alexander Parks (1883–1984), American engineer and Governor of Alaska Territory

History of slavery in Alaska

Whereas the continental United States mostly saw enslavement of Africans brought across the Atlantic Ocean, in Alaska indigenous people, and some whites, enslaved indigenous people from other tribes.

James Evans, Sr.

In the second and third season of the show, James went to night school to complete his G.E.D., and afterwards was offered a construction job in Alaska during the building of the Alaska Pipeline and various other places away from Chicago, and even got to see his long lost father Henry again.

John Ronald Brown

Brown continued to practice medicine outside of California, but was successively barred from practicing in Hawaii, Alaska and the island of Saint Lucia.

KAMP

KAMP-LP, a low-power radio station (92.9 FM) licensed to St. Michael, Alaska, United States

Katey Walter

Walter, who is fluent in Russian, works as project coordinator at Chersky for joint Russian-U.S. projects over the International Polar Year, aiming to network arctic observatories in Alaska and Russia for long term monitoring of climate change in cold regions.

KSWD

KSEW, a radio station (950 AM) licensed to Seward, Alaska, United States, which used the call sign KSWD from September 1991 to May 2008

Linny Pacillo Parking Garage

The art in the garage, under the 1 Percent for Art Program, includes art inspired by Alaska flora and fauna on each garage level, a piece in the main elevator lobby that tells the Parking Fairies story, and a mural over the Seventh Avenue exit titled "Focus on Statehood" that features four men instrumental in Alaska's becoming a state: Bob Atwood, Bill Egan, Bob Bartlett and Ernest Gruening.

Lopp

Lopp Lagoon, body of water in Alaska named after William Thomas Lopp

Michael Henry Herbert

He created with the U.S. Secretary of State John Hay a joint commission to establish the border between the U.S. district of Alaska and British interests in the Dominion of Canada, where gold had been found in the 1890s, which resulted in the definitive Alaskan boundary treaty of 1903.

Michael Kenny

Michael Hughes Kenny (1937–1995), Roman Catholic bishop of Juneau, Alaska

Nenana River

The upper valley of the river furnishes approximately 100 mi (160 km) of the northern route of both the Alaska Railroad and the Parks Highway (Alaska State Highway 3) connecting Fairbanks and Anchorage.

Outlying Areas Senate Presidents Caucus

The Outlying Areas Senate Presidents Caucus is an informal legislative organization created in 2007 by leaders of the Senates of the U.S. states of Alaska and Hawai'i and the United States territories of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Northern Marianas Islands.

PABT

Bettles Airport (ICAO location indicator: PABT), in Bettles, Alaska, United States

PACD

Cold Bay Airport (ICAO location indicator: PACD), in Cold Bay, Alaska, United States

Password Plus and Super Password

However, a viewer in Anchorage, Alaska called the United States Secret Service and reported that "Quinn" was really Kerry Lee Ketchum, who was wanted on state fraud charges in Alaska and Indiana as well as federal mail fraud charges in California.

Pirinçlik Air Base

Subsequent installation of another AN/FPS-17 radar on Shemya, a western island in the chain of Aleutian Islands off Alaska, made it possible for U.S. observers to monitor Soviet missile test flights to the Kamchatka peninsula.

Puff model

In a joint program called University Partnering for Operational Support (UPOS) between the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (early 2000s), Puff was integrated into the U.S. Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) volcano monitoring system by Rorik Peterson and David Tillman.

Rachael Scdoris

On March 5 she started the 2005 Iditarod in Anchorage, Alaska, with "visual interpreter" Paul Ellering, who warned her of trail conditions by radio or shouting.

Required navigation performance

In 1996, Alaska Airlines became the first airline in the world to utilize an RNP approach with its approach down the Gastineau Channel into Juneau, Alaska.

Richard D. Cotter

After Cotter completed the mapping in Yosemite late 1864, he signed up to work on the Western Union Telegraph Expedition to British Columbia and Alaska, with the goal of providing a telegraph link from Asia through Alaska by way of Bering Strait.

Robert R. Coats

As part of the Alaska Branch of the USGS, he continued working in Alaska, mapping in the Chichagof, Anikovik, Nome, Solomon, Kigluaik and Kobuk River areas, among others.

Salix pulchra

It is native to northern North America, where it occurs in Alaska, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.

Sam Keith

His most notable work was the 1973 best seller One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey in which he edited the journals and photographs of his friend Richard Proenneke's solo experiences in Alaska.

Samuel Balto

Samuel Balto, together with 113 other people from Finnmark were hired by Sheldon Jackson to be involved in the introduction of reindeer in Alaska.

SeaPerch

Currently, 112 schools in seven states are participating across the United States in Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Connecticut.

Senate Conservatives Fund

The PAC also supported a number of candidates that lost their elections, including Sharron Angle in Nevada, Ken Buck in Colorado, Joe Miller in Alaska, John Raese in West Virginia, Dino Rossi in Washington, and Christine O'Donnell in Delaware.

Soulcatcher

A Soulcatcher (Haboolm Ksinaalgat, 'keeper of breath') is an amulet (Aatxasxw) used by the shaman (Halayt) of the Pacific Northwest Coast of British Columbia and Alaska.

Stanley T. Adams

As a civilian, Adams lived in Alaska and worked as an administrator for the Internal Revenue Service there.

Stone sheep

Stone's Sheep are primarily found in Northern British Columbia and can often be seen by travellers licking minerals along the side of the Alaska Highway in areas such as Summit Lake, Stone Mountain Provincial Park and Muncho Lake Provincial Park.

Stun belt

Introduced in the United States in the early 1990s, by 1996 it was reportedly in use by the US Bureau of Prisons, the US Marshals Service, and 16 state correctional agencies including those of Alaska, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Ohio, Virginia, and Washington.

Tulsequah River

An Alaska organization, Rivers Without Borders, has been working to gain legislative protection for the Taku River on the Alaska side, an effort driven in part by the mine's waste flowing into the Tulsequah River.

Vatnajökull

The glacier was used as the setting for the opening sequence (set in Siberia) of the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill, in which Bond (played for the last time by Roger Moore) eliminated a host of armed villains before escaping in a submarine to Alaska.

Vic Vickers

Vickers says that he hitchhiked to Alaska as a college student in 1970, working for two years as an aide to Alaska Supreme Court Chief Justice George Boney.