X-Nico

77 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.

African Metals Corporation

Shiega also had an interest in a project in the Tintina Gold Belt, northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska.

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

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-Juneau Gold Mining Company

Its Transfer Agent was Central Trust Company while its Registrar was Metropolitan Trust Company.

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.

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.

Balto (1919 – March 14, 1933) was a Alaskan Malamute sled dog who led his team on the final leg of the 1925 serum run to Nome, in which diphtheria antitoxin was transported from Anchorage, Alaska, to Nenana, Alaska, by train and then to Nome by dog sled to combat an outbreak of the disease.

Bingham Canyon Mine

The Kennecott Copper Corporation, established in 1903 to operate mines in Kennecott, Alaska, purchased a financial interest in Utah Copper in 1915 and fully acquired the company in 1936.

Bowieite

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

Can-Am United Floorball Club

The club is a mix of three North American floorball clubs: Alaska's Arctic Floorball Monkeys, the Boston Bandyts Floorball Club, and the Edmonton Panthera Floorball Club.

Chatanika, Alaska

Chatanika, along with Fox, are the only two of the numerous communities in the hills immediately north of Fairbanks which has managed to remain populated and maintain a distinct community identity.

Christine Lund

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

Chuathbaluk, Alaska

In 1954, the Crow Village Sam Phillips family from Crow Village resettled the mission, and were joined later by individuals from Aniak and Crooked Creek.

Commonwealth North

Founded in 1979, it is the oldest and largest public affairs forum in Alaska.

Davidson Ditch

Davidson Ditch lay dormant until 1958, when the new Chatanika Power Company purchased it and used one of the siphons to power a hydroelectric plant that drove a dredging operation near Chatanika.

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.

Energy use in California

{fact} In addition to oil from California, California’s refineries process crude oil from Alaska and foreign suppliers.

Ernest William Hawkes

His 1914 publication Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo was based on the three years Hawkes spent in the Bering Strait District, including on the Diomede Islands and at St. Michael.

Ethan Berkowitz

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

Berkowitz received more votes in 2008 (142,560) than any Democrat who had ever run against Young for Congress, and the 2008 race was the closest any Democrat had come to unseating Young since 1990, when John Devens of Valdez received 48% of the vote.

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).

Forty Mile

Tetlin Junction, Alaska, a community in the United States also known as Forty Mile

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.

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.

Heating degree day

In the course of a heating season, for example, the number of HDD for New York City is 5,050 whereas that for Barrow, Alaska is 19,990.

Hellboy: The Troll Witch and Others

In the story Hellboy travels to Alaska in 1961, where he finds not only the grave of the recently deceased Hercules (who lived out the final years of his life in anonymity as a school janitor) but a monstrous hydra.

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.

J. P. Hubrick

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

John C. Acton

Next he served as Commanding Officer, USCGC Cape Henlopen, a search and rescue patrol boat in Petersburg, Alaska, and then completed his active duty at Vessel Traffic Service, New Orleans.

Josh Phelps

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

Kim Elton

Muñoz, whose family came to Juneau from Wrangell in 1928, became the fourth generation in her family to hold elected office in Southeast Alaska when she was appointed to replace Dennis Egan (who was appointed Juneau's mayor) on the Juneau Assembly in 1995.

KJNP

KJNP is a broadcasting call sign, standing for King Jesus North Pole.

Knik River

Much of its length is paralleled by the paved Old Glenn Highway and the paved (as of 2000) Knik River Road, along which can be found the community of Knik River.

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.

Kwigiumpainukamiut, Alaska

Kwigiumpainukamiut is a ghost town in Bethel Census Area, Alaska, United States located between Chuathbaluk and Napaimute, directly across the river from Kolmakoff Island.

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.

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.

Lynn Canal Highway

-- Please use "DOT&PF" (official & unique to Alaska), *not* "ADOT" (used by Arizona Department of Transportation). --> calls for extending "The Road" northward from Juneau to Skagway, connecting with the Klondike Highway and thus with the main continental road system.

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.

Margretta Styles

Their son, Mike Styles, was the founder and race director of the Midnight Sun Run in Fairbanks, 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.

McGrath, Alaska

The Old Town McGrath site, across the river from present-day McGrath, was a meeting and trading place for Big River, Nikolai, Telida, and Lake Minchumina villagers.

Merchant Marine Act of 1920

In order to conduct an emergency shipment of gasoline from Dutch Harbor, Alaska to Nome in January 2012, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano granted a waiver to the Russian ice class marine tanker Renda.

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.

Minto, Alaska

The people from the Minto band were eventually joined by families from Nenana, Toklat, Crossjacket and Chena.

Mountain Village

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

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.

Nintendo North Bend

The North Bend center handles distribution for the Western Coast, Rocky Mountain, Midwestern, Hawaii, and Alaska regions.

PFD Otter

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

Pickle Family Circus

In 1979, the Pickles extended their tour to perform at the Alaska State Fair in Palmer, Alaska, and in 1981 performed a two-month winter run at the Roundhouse Theater in London.

Prospect Creek

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

Rubicon Minerals

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

Ruger Alaskan

On August 2, 2009, Soldotna, Alaska resident Greg Brush was walking his dog, and heard a twig snap.

Scouting in Alaska

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

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.

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.

Swanson River

In its lower reaches, it passes through the Swanson River Oil Field east of Nikiski before turning sharply north.

Tanadgusix Corporation

TDX Power is a power production and distribution company with a hybrid wind-diesel power plant in Saint Paul (the largest hybrid wind-diesel power plant in Alaska), a 4-MW Cat diesel power plant in Sand Point, Alaska, and a 10-MW diesel and natural gas power plant on the North Slope in Deadhorse.

Tanana River

The river's headwaters are located at the confluence of the Chisana and Nabesna rivers just north of Northway in eastern Alaska.

Texas, Our Texas

The first word of the third line was originally largest, but when Alaska became the largest state when it was admitted to the United States in 1959, the word was replaced with boldest.

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.

Upper Kalskag, Alaska

Over the years, residents of Crow Village, Ohagamiut, Russian Mission, and Paimute also moved to the village.

Vsevolod Leonidovich Roshko

The next posting was Russian Catholic Mission in Dillingham, Alaska, USA, where Roshko take a serious study of life and work of Russian missionary Herman of 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).

White-cheeked Starling

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

William Parkhurst Winans

He recorded a biography of Edward Marsden, an Indian of the tribe Metlakatla in 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


144th Airlift Squadron

One of the more notable missions flown by the 144th ATS was "Operation Santa Claus", which began in December 1957 when the squadron was called on to make an emergency airdrop of supplies to the community of St. Mary's Mission on the Yukon River in southwestern Alaska.

Ahtna

Ahtna, Incorporated, an Alaska Native Regional Corporation created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971

Alaska boundary dispute

Some 100,000 fortune seekers moved through Alaska to the Klondike gold region.

Alaska Legislative Council

In 1998 the Council sued the Federal Government over plans by the United States to take over Alaska's subsistence fishing program under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, claiming the proposal would violate the Alaska Statehood Compact, which gave Alaska the right to manage its own fish and game resources.

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.

Bong Hawkins

During the Philippine Cup of 2004-05, he was traded back to the Alaska Aces alongside Cariaso and Reynel Hugnatan for John Arigo and Ali Peek.

Butterfly crab

Cryptolithodes typicus, commonly known as the butterfly crab, is a species of lithodid crustacean native to coastal regions of the northeastern Pacific Ocean, ranging from Amchitka Island, Alaska to Santa Rosa Island, California.

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.

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.

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.

Echelmeyer Ice Stream

The name was changed from Ice Stream F by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names in 2002 to honor Dr. Keith A. Echelmeyer of the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, who studied the flow of Marie Byrd Land ice streams, 1992–93 and 1994–95, as well as the fast flow of surging glaciers in Alaska and Greenland.

Edward L. Keithahn

He became interested in totem poles at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle, Washington, in 1909 and later traveled to southeast Alaska and eventually lived there working "in the Indian service," as he put it (meaning perhaps employment with the Bureau of Indian Affairs), living mainly among the Tlingit and Haida people.

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.

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.

John R. Pillion

In Congress, he was most notable as an opponent of statehood for both Hawaii and Alaska.

John Troy

John Weir Troy (1868–1942), American Democratic politician, Governor of Alaska Territory, 1933–1939

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.

KBBO

KBBO-FM, a radio station (92.1 FM) licensed to Houston, Alaska, United States

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.

Little Gold Creek, Yukon

Little Gold Creek is a border crossing located on the Top of the World Highway between Dawson City, Yukon and Tok, Alaska, at the Alaska/Yukon border.

Lituya

MV Lituya, shuttle ferry for the Alaska Marine Highway System

Marco Sullivan

Sullivan was the Downhill champion at the U.S. Alpine Championships in 2007 in the Alyeska Resort in Alaska; he finished more than a full second ahead of runner-up Erik Fisher.

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.

Michael Kenny

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

Mount Edgecumbe High School

The school is named for Mount Edgecumbe which is located on Kruzof Island, a dormant volcano visible from Mt. Edgecumbe High School's campus, which was, in turn, named for George, Earl of Edgecumbe, by British Captain James Cook.

Mount Steller

These peaks are presumably both named for naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller, an early European visitor to Alaska.

MS Oosterdam

The ship has been alternating fall/winter cruises along the Mexican Riviera and summer in Alaska.

Murkowski

Lisa Murkowski, daughter of the former, U.S. politician, incumbent Senator from Alaska (since 2002)

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.

Northwestel

The microwave system on the Alaska Highway was inaugurated with a phone call from Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, visiting Whitehorse, to President John F. Kennedy in Washington, D.C..

PAPR

Prospect Creek Airport (ICAO location indicator: PAPR), in Prospect Creek, Alaska, United States

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.

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.

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.

Scopula frigidaria

It is found from Fennoscandia to the Kamchatka Peninsula and in northern North America, where it occurs across the boreal forest region, from Alaska across the Northwest Territories and Nunavut to Newfoundland, and in the mountains south to southern Wisconsin, Alberta and British Columbia.

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.

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.

Stryker

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

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.

William Henry Bay

After Alaska was purchased by the US Government in 1867, the first effort to identify the timber trade route from Lynn Canal to Haines via William Henry Bay was made in 1869 by Navy Commander Richard Worsam Meade.