• The history of Alaska and Western Canada is an extremely interesting subject. Learning about the history is important so that one can understand better how things came to be in this area.

Present Day Issues:

Present day Alaska is a state organized around its natural resources. The majority of the wealth of present day Alaska comes from oil, fisheries, tourism and forestry. Its fairly easy to say that Alaskans are in touch with the nature around them and the issues. Some of these issues have recieved more publicity than others. Here I'll note only a few: oil, animal conservation, and tourism.

Oil
In Alaska, Oil is a very important economic factor. Alaska's Oil was given a lot of publicity in the last few decades. The Exxon Valdez oil spill on March 24th 1989 in Prince William Sound caused a huge catastrophe of which 12,000 people flocked to the state to help in the cleanup. The Trans-Alaskan Pipeline has also recieved a lot of attention because of its massive size and potential effects on wildlife. But, from the Alaskan's we have talked to, very few are against oil. They see the benefits that the oil has in the state and believe that it can be pulled from the ground in sustainable ways. Hopefully they are right and we won't have many more largely publicized oil problems.

Animal Conservation:
How many of us could deny that Alaska is not a wild place? In fact, many of the animals that are rare in the lower 48 states are very common if not abundant in these fields. Take the Bald eagle for instance. Its a rare site to see them in most areas of the continental US, but in Alaska, you can hardly miss them. In fact, the abundance of wildlife in this land brings a lot of people to the state to see them. In 1980 the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) added approximately 110 million acres to wildife refuges and parklands. In fact the state contains most the entire countries parkland. Thats part of the reason we are traveling there!

Tourism:
Tourism brings a lot of visitors to the state, particularly in the summer. This is easy to see due to long lines at certain wildlife attractions and popular parks. In fact, the 1.4 million tourists that come to the state a year mostly to see the wild areas of Alaska. yet, not many actually venture into the wild lands. Rarely do we see people on the trails and offroad sections. This is good for those that truely want to see the wild areas of the state, because most of it still remains uninhabited.