Alaska, a territory of the United States, occupying the NW. portion of the North American continent, together with a great number of islands, mostly in the Pacific Ocean. It is bounded on the N. by the Arctic Ocean, on the E. by the Northwest Territories of Canada and by British Columbia; on the SW. by the Pacific Ocean, and W. by Behring Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Its land area is estimated at 530,000 sq. m. It is about as large in territory as Great Britain, Ireland, France, and Spain combined. The northern portion of Alaska, containing five-sixths of its area, consists essentially of a vast expanse of moor or tundra, broken here and there by mountain-spurs (an especially marked feature in the south), and varied by countless lakes, water-courses, and sphagnum swamps. About one-third of this region lies within the arctic circle. The winter climate is here terribly severe, and the short summers are rendered almost unendurable by clouds of mosquitoes or gnats. This region is traversed by the great river Yukon, about 2000 miles long, which is said to discharge more water into the sea than the Mississippi, and by its main tributary the Tananah, the Kuskokquim, and other large streams. Its population is Innuit or Eskimo, in the north and on the coast, but Athabaskan or Tinnel (Red Indian) elsewhere. The fisheries and the fur-trade afford subsistence to the scanty population. Commerce is here much obstructed by the shallows which border the eastern shores of Behring Sea.
A second section comprises the Aleutian Islands (q.v.), and a great part of the peninsula of Alaska. This division is mountainous, and actively volcanic. It is very thinly peopled by the Aleuts, a race considered by many to be Asiatic rather than American. The taking of the valuable fur-bearing sea-otter is the leading pursuit here. The Pribilof Islands, in Behring Sea, are at present the most important seat in the world of the capture of the fur-seal.
South-eastern Alaska consists of a narrow strip of continental land, together with the Alexander Archipelago, lying near the mainland. This region is extremely mountainous and well timbered. A dispute as to the boundary between the United States and Canada was one of the questions submitted to the joint commission of 1898 on matters in dispute between the two countries. The controversy concerns south-eastern Alaska. The boundary as defined in the Russo-British treaty of 1825 is given as 'ten marine leagues from the ocean.' The dispute is, whether the word 'ocean' includes the waters inside of Prince of Wales Island, as the United States hold, or is confined to the outside waters, as in Canada's contention. The possession of the navigable inlets giving access to the new gold-fields in the Canadian part of the Yukon valley is of great importance, especially in view of the United States customs tariff.
The native animals of Alaska include the reindeer, the moose, the Rocky Mountain sheep; bears, wolves, foxes; the muskrat, ermine, mink, sable, lynx, beaver, wolverene, squirrel, hare, porcupine, and marmot; the sea and river otter; fur, hair, and other seals, and the walrus. Among the valuable food fishes are the cod, herring, halibut, and salmon of several species. Agriculture does not flourish in Alaska; the climate is untoward, and the country generally very rocky and broken. A few cattle are kept near the settlements, and some potatoes and a few garden vegetables are grown. In 1898-9 the United States government established an agricultural experimental station at Sitka, with laboratories, in order to discover the most suitable grains or herbs and encourage their growth. Gold is mined at Juneau and in the Yukon valley (especially since 1895; Klondyke, q.v., is not far across the frontier); and in 1899 valuable goldfields were discovered near Cape Nomo. Coal is found at various points.
Alaska, formerly called Russian America, was first visited by the Russians under Vitus Behring in 1741. In 1799 the whole country passed under control of the Russian America Company. In 1867 the United States purchased the territory from Russia for $7,200,000 in gold. In 1890 Alaska had a population of 31,795, of whom 4419 were whites, 2125 Chinese, 82 negroes, 1565 mestizos, and the rest were Indians of various tribes or stocks. The white population has increased largely of late, the mining, fur-trade, and fisheries having attracted many settlers. The towns are all small, and most of them are on the coast. Among them are Sitka, the capital; Fort Wrangel; Belkofsky, a depot of the seal-otter fur-trade; Michaelofsky; and Juneau, Skagway, and Dyea (the latter two in the debatable territory), on the southern inlets, which have sprung into note as being on the route to the Upper Yukon.
See BEHRING STRAIT; Woolman, Picturesque Alaska (1890); Wardman, A Trip to Alaska (1885); Elliott, Our Arctic Province: Alaska and the Seal Islands (1886); Seton Karr, The Shores and Alps of Alaska (1887); Sheldon Jackson, Alaska; Scidmore, Guide-book to Alaska (N.Y., 1893); J. C. Russell in R. S. Geog. Mag. 1894; H. de Windt, Through the Gold Fields of Alaska to Behring's Strait (1896); Alaska as it was and is (Washington, 1896).