Senior Voice -

After decades of oppression by Russian fur traders, and then American interests, the Natives of Southeast Alaska decided it was time to organize into a united voice to change the way people perceived...

One of Alaska's early pioneers, who died 33 years ago this month at age 99, left his mark on early Alaska transportation. Robert E. "Bobby" Sheldon built the territory's first automobile, drove the...

Sled dogs have a long and illustrious history in the North Country, from the early days of Native settlements to the gold-rush booms during the 1890-1900s. Natives of Alaska, northern Canada,...

Before the Internet and cell service became synonymous with instant communication, Alaska's remote villages relied on a military network of telephone-telegraph radiophone stations to relay messages....

One of the last ships scheduled to leave Southeast Alaska in the fall of 1918 met with disaster only a few days into her voyage. On October 23, Canadian Pacific Railway steamship Princess Sophia...

Many of those who came to Alaska during World War II liked what they saw and decided to set down roots in the Last Frontier. Among them was a true visionary who created one of Anchorage's premier...

Prospectors searching for gold in the Wrangell Mountains during the early 1900s found a mountain of copper instead. Others had discovered coal and oil in the Prince William Sound and Bering River...

At 2 p.m. on June 30, 1958, teletypes and telephones all across Alaska began buzzing with exciting news. After six days of debate, the U.S. Senate had voted 64-20 to add Alaska as the 49th state. The...

The infant town of Anchorage, only a few years old, had always been interested in America's favorite pastime when William F. Mulcahy, later known as "Mr. Baseball," blew into the lusty, young railroad...

Although the frenzied gold seekers of the North lacked most of the luxuries, not to mention necessities, of civilized living, they did have theaters – even opera houses. There had been entertainment i...

Called the Spanish flu, only because the Spanish press wrote about it, a virus took more than 500,000 American lives between 1918-1919 (estimates worldwide range from 20 to 100 million). And it came...

Among the memorials in the Anchorage Municipal Park Cemetery stands a small, pink marker adorned with a palette. It is the final resting place of Sydney Mortimer Laurence, one of Alaska's greatest art...

One of Anchorage's most respected doctors made a mercy run to Iditarod four years before Nome's celebrated diphtheria serum run of 1925. Early on the morning of Jan. 24, 1921, Dr. John B. Beeson...

Some courageous pioneers saw the possibilities of the Yukon Basin years before the Klondike Gold Rush. And a few stand out above the rest, including Leroy Napoleon "Jack" McQuesten, Alfred Mayo and...

Mollie Walsh made a name for herself among the prospectors who flooded north during the Klondike Gold Rush. Her "grub tent" was a welcome sight to many miners who climbed the White Pass Trail in the...

While workers completed the last portion of the Alaska-Canada Highway at Beaver Creek on Oct. 25, 1942, the idea to connect Alaska to the rest of the world was born many years earlier. Donald...

Russian fur traders wanted to build a fort called Mikhailovsk about six miles north of the present town of Sitka in 1799. They gave the Tlingits, who'd occupied that part of Southeast Alaska for more...

The section of Anchorage called Spenard was referred to as the "Miracle Mile" not so long ago. As part of the Chugach National Forest created by U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt in 1907, the land was...

A gambler's hunch compelled California mining magnate John Treadwell to purchase a claim from "French Pete" for $400. That decision turned into the discovery of the famed "Glory Hole" on Douglas...

Long before the Matanuska Valley became one of the fastest-growing communities in the nation, Russians tried to establish agricultural settlements on its fertile soil. They taught the Tanaina how to g...

At 4 a.m. on May 2, 1963, Cordovans awoke to the sounds of fire sirens wailing through their streets. Then came a bombardment of ammunition as shells exploded in the basement of the Cordova Commercial...

Have you ever wondered what it was like living in "the good old days" and wished you could step back in time? One Anchorage home listed on the National Register of Historic Places offers visitors...

"Standing here and looking far off into the northwest, I see the Russian as he busily occupies himself in establishing seaports and towns and fortifications on the verge of the continent...and I can...

Cordova's Iceworm, the brain child of Ohmer Waer in 1960, was a gallant effort to attract tourists to Cordova and combat midwinter doldrums. Waer, manager of the historic old Windsor Hotel, looked...