Weird Wednesday: A Brief History of Alaska

The top Google searches this week were: “Where is Alaska?” and “Is Alaska part of Russia now?” so here is a quick refresher.

In 1867, Tsar Alexander the II—

Wait. It started a little earlier than that.

About 40 000 years ago, a couple of nomads wandering the easternmost steppes of Asia noticed herds of cariboo and mammoths crossing over the newly exposed land bridge.

“When did that happen?” one of them asked. “No idea. We should go over there,” said the other. “What if we can’t get back?” the first one said, prompting the first utterance of the phrase, “It’ll be fine.”

Now back to 1867, when Tsar Alexander the II decided to unload Alaska to the United States for the sum of 7 million dollars because he was tired of people crossing the Bering Straight to get an extra day to pay their taxes.

During the next twenty years the land remained sparsely populated by the indigenous groups that had lived there for thousands of years. When they were told that they were Americans now, they responded, “Wait! What?”

In 1897, gold was discovered in the Klondike and US politicians frantically pours over maps hoping that the area was part of the deal. When seeing it wasn’t, they rushed to Skagway and set up a bunch of smelly fish canning factories along the coast so that Canadians would give up the land. Indigenous people living in the area said, “Wait. Where are you taking all our fish?”

Chaos ensured for the next five years until all the easy gold was mined and prospectors moved onto Nome, the site of the next great rush, coining the phrase, “There’s no place like Nome.”

Then during a diphtheria outbreak in 1925, an dog sled team broke a 100 mile trail to deliver serum that saved many lives and gave birth not only the Iditarod dog sled race but also Domino’s guarantee of thirty hours or free delivery.

In 1959, Alaska was finally granted statehood to which the Indigenous population said, “Wait! What?”

-Leon

Leon Stevens is a multi-genre author, composer, guitarist, songwriter, and an artist, with a Bachelor of Music and Education. He published his first book of poetry, Lines by Leon: Poems, Prose, and Pictures in January 2020, followed by a book of original classical guitar compositions, Journeys, and a short story collection of science fiction/post-apocalyptic tales called The Knot at the End of the Rope and Other Short Stories. His newest publications are the novella trilogy, The View from Here, which is a continuation of one of his short stories, a new collection of poetry titled, A Wonder of Words, and his latest sci-fi mystery, Euphrates Vanished.

My new book page: http://books.linesbyleon.com/

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