Alaska has an excellent, but simple history. Alaska wasn't always home to so many different people and heritages. In 1741 it had nearly seventy thousand natives living in Alaska (Alaska 1). There was an outstanding amount of natural resources and Russia, Great Britain and the U.S. started competing for land and trade (Alaska 1). Things finally changed in 1867. The U.S. bought Alaska for 7.2 million dollars (Alaska 1). This land was very rich filled with Klondike gold. In 1896 there were people coming to Alaska in search for the gold. What nobody thought about was how long this gold would last. By 1920 it was very low on gold and World War I had convinced the settlers to move on (Alaska 1). There greatest year to Alaskan Americans is probably in 1959 when Alaska became the forty-ninth state of the United States of America (Alaska: I.H. ix). That was relief to Americans and to the young cou

ntry. Gaining Alaska meant gaining a land of beauty and of remarkable history.

There is nothing better in Alaska than its geography. The Yukon River probably represents its geography better than any other river or lake. The Yukon is one of the longest rivers in the continent and flows across the state from east to west (Microsoft 10). It is so long it spreads about 200 miles (Alaska I.H. 7). Other then the Yukon, the Lliama, Becharof and Ugashik are the largest lakes in Alaska (Microsoft 10). You don't usually expect volcanoes and earthquakes in places with an averagely low temperature. There is evidence of volcanoes and earthquakes in Alaska, though (Microsoft 4). So, seeing a volcano or feeling a little shake in Alaska would not be so unusual. As Brazil has the Amazon rain forest, Alaska has the Panhandle. The Panhandle gets 180 inches of precipitation a year which, is nearly twice the amount of the Amazon (Dale 23). The Panhandle is quite like the Japan Current-warm humid air. The moisture turns to rain or snow as the air climbs into the cooler atmosphere of the peaks. All this geography, but still no resources that the rest of the world can use...wrong. Mining is 1/3 of the annual gross state product (Microsoft 36). Topping the mining charts would be petroleum. It is 85% by value of the annual mineral output (Microsoft 36). The places they build mines is where they find the mineral. Most of the production comes from Prudhoe Bay and smaller mines on the Mc Arthur River, Middle Ground Shoal, Granite Point, the Swanson River, Tradi

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