Alaskan Development

Report Outline
Pressures of Far-Reaching Change
Slow Progress of Past Development
Major Questions Facing the State
Special Focus

Pressures of Far-Reaching Change

Alaska means “the great land.” It is indeed a state of superlatives, Alaska is larger than the next three largest states combined. It has more timber, water and copper than the rest of the United States. There may be as much oil and natural gas in Alaska and off its coasts as in all the other 49 states. Alaska has three million lakes, several major river systems, a dozen peaks higher than any other American mountains, and numerous mammoth glaciers. Alaska's fish, wildlife, plants and flowers are abundant and many are unique to the state. Yet most of Alaska still is wilderness—of the state's 375 million acres only about 100,000 acres now are taken up by cities, towns, villages, roads or other marks of human activity. It has the fewest people of any state (405,000) and the most land per resident (925 acres).

Alaska today is a state of change and turmoil. The trans-Alaska oil pipeline—perhaps the largest private construction project ever undertaken—is nearly finished, and it already has altered Alaska profoundly. The pipeline has brought millions of dollars and thousands of people to the state, creating a “boom” atmosphere unseen since the gold rush days. It remains to be seen if a “bust” will follow. There are several competing plans to build another pipeline from Alaska's North Slope to carry its enormous natural gas reserves to market (see p. 947). If the “haul road” that parallels the oil pipeline north of the Yukon River is opened up to the public, the northern half of the state will be significantly affected (see map). As for the southern part of the state, Alaskans voted in November to move their capital from Juneau, in the southeastern panhandle, to a new site near the tiny town of Willow, just north of Anchorage and nearer the bulk of the state's population. On the site, a new city will be built so the capital can be moved by 1980.

Much of Alaska's 586,000 square miles of land also is un-dergoing change of ownership. When Alaska became a state in 1959, more than 99 per cent of the land was owned by the federal government. Today the government is in the midst of a corn-plicated process of turning some land over to the residents of the state and setting aside other lands for preservation as national parks or monuments, national forests, wildlife refuges, scenic reserves or for other purposes. Under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, passed by Congress five years ago, 40 million acres are to be turned over to the state's Eskimos, Aleuts and Indians; up to 80 million additional acres will be set aside in the national interest. This process is to be completed by December 1978, and a myriad of difficult questions remain to be decided (see p. 936).