04/20/2007 - AK In A Nutshell

And now, for some AK facts:

• Alaska is the largest state, twice the size of Texas.
• Of the 12,479 miles of total United States coastline, 6,640 miles are in Alaska. Florida is second at 1350 miles, California has 840, and Hawaii has 750.
  
• Mt. McKinley (Denali) is not just the tallest mountain in the U.S., but in all of North America, at 20,320 feet. From base to summit, Denali's vertical relief is greater than that of Mt. Everest. No one-trick pony, Alaska also boasts 19 of the 20 tallest peaks in the United States, the other being Mt. Whitney in CA. Colorado, where you at?
  

(Alaska Range from a 10-seat plane ride we took in 8/06)

• Population (as of the 2000 census): 626,932. Population per square mile: 1.10, the lowest in the country (Compare MO at 81 people per square mile and CA at 217).
  
• Kodiak Island is the second largest island in the United States, behind only the big island of Hawaii. Eight of the largest ten and fifteen of the largest twenty islands in the U.S. are in Alaska (the others are Puerto Rico, Long Island, Maui, and Oahu).
• Alaska was purchased from Russia, which lies just 53 miles off its coast, in 1867. It was considered an economic wasteland by Russia, which sold it for a mere 2 cents per acre ($7.2 million). For comparison, in the mid-1800's the U.S. was selling land in the West for $1.25/acre to encourage westward expansion. Alaska finally entered the Union in January of 1959, eight months before Hawaii followed suit.
• On June 3, 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese launched an attack against Dutch Harbor, Alaska (in the Aleutian Islands, as seen on Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch"). One hundred servicemen and civilians were killed, and barracks, fuel tanks, and other structures were set ablaze. In short, Japanese forces ended up occupying American soil (on other Aleutian Islands) for over a year, and at a later battle (the first land battle against foreign forces on American soil since the War of 1812) 549 American soldiers and all but 30 of the 3200 Japanese soldiers died (some by their own hand). If you are as interested in this piece of history as I was, you can find out more here from the good people at the National Park Service: http://www.nps.gov/archive/aleu/WWII_in_the_Aleutians.htm