Alaska, the Last Frontier
Alaska, the Last Frontier
Alaska, the wilderness state, the last frontier.
Where majestic mountains
Deliver streams and rivers flowing
Down slopes covered in forests
Of Sitka spruce and western hemlock
That dominate the landscape.
The name Alaska originates
From the Aleut word “Alyeska,”
Meaning the “mainland,” or literally,
“The object toward which the action of the sea is directed.”
Home to barren-ground caribou, lemmings, polar bears,
Willow ptarmigan, Alaska moose,
And the stately Chinook king salmon.
And home to the nation’s only herd of wood bison,
Once thought not to exist but reintroduced
And brought back from extinction.
Hence, ages ago when glaciers grew and melted,
A land bridge was formed between Siberia and Alaska
Where the ancestors lived and eventually walked over
To settle the great land and coastal waters.
The Indigenous peoples of Inuit and First Nations
(Aleuts and Yuit, Athabascans, Tlingit, and Haida)
Believe all places, objects, and creatures
Possess a divine presence, and shamans
Are spiritual healers who can meditate with them.
Under the aurora borealis,
From the North Pacific to the Arctic Ocean,
They conduct their way of life,
Engaging in hunting, trapping, trading, and fishing,
At peace with the world.
March 30, 1867, marks the day history changed
When the Alaskan territory was sold
By the Empire of Russia to the United States of America
(An area twice the size of Texas)
For 7.2 million US dollars and for the next three decades,
It was given little attention
Until gold was discovered near Nome in 1899.
Then, a stampede of sourdoughs left the Yukon’s
Klondike goldfields for richer claims
Of placer and bench gold
In the streams, soils, and rocks of Alaska
Via the American-only route and Canadian trails.
Today, gold is the state’s national mineral.
And when war came to the Aleutian Islands
(After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor),
Alaska proved its worth and came of age
Due to its strategic importance in the war effort,
Growth took place at a rapid pace.
Roads and towns, naval bases, and airports appeared overnight.
Alaskan pride in the fight for freedom prevailed.
Every March, since nineteen seventy-three,
The “Iditarod” (the last great race on Earth)
Has been run from Anchorage to Nome
On a trail just over a thousand miles
By mushers and their Alaskan Malamute and Siberian dogs.
North America’s highest peak
And the world’s largest rise
Is Denali (formerly called Mount McKinley),
Located in the Alaska Range,
And Lake Iliamna; a lake that is the size of Connecticut.
The state flag bears the North Star and Big Dipper
On a background of blue that waves in the wind.
“North to the Future” is the state’s motto
As its citizens sing “Alaska’s Flag Song”
And pay homage to the early prospectors
In their quest for gold
And in honor of achieving the forty-ninth statehood
On January third, nineteen fifty-nine,
As the forget-me-not flower blooms in spring
When the season of love begins.
Today, trawlers leave the ports to catch
The prized Alaskan king crab,
And the Iñupiat harvest the bowhead whale
In managed traditional fishing waters
And net coho and sockeye salmon
Swimming upstream to ancient spawning grounds,
While a bustling oil industry thrives
With offshore drilling and land exploration.
Alaska, jade of the North, in the twenty-first century!
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