Senior Voice -

Juneau became the capital of the 49th state on Jan. 3, 1959, after U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the statehood act into law. It became the only state capital not accessible by road. But...

More than four decades ago Congress enacted the Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Act, which conveyed about 40 million acres to Alaska Native-owned corporations and settled aboriginal land claims....

Homer residents turned to Betty Crocker when they needed a firetruck in the late 1960s after learning about a promotion offered by General Mills. The nationally known company offered a program where...

Four small cannons in Sitka, which started out in Unalaska, stand in testimony to Alaska's occupation by Russia and the subsequent transfer of Alaska to America 150 years ago. The Northern Commercial...

Enterprising newsmen published the first issue of the Yukon Press in March 1898. The 14-page effort shared the news of the day from St. Michael to the upper Yukon. With the discovery of gold along...

A pachyderm named Annabelle, who became prolific with a paintbrush and easel, is responsible for the creation of the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage. It all started when Jack Snyder saw a tongue-in-cheek...

Baseball has long been a staple of summers in Alaska. And when Anchorage baseball fans wanted a semi-pro team in 1969, they knew they could count on George "Lefty" Van Brunt to coach the boys of...

A small spruce that peered skyward in a dense forest on Prince of Wales Island in the mid-1700s found its way to Anchorage when Alaska became America's 49th state. This Southeast Alaska sapling held...

While the Southeast town of Sitka claims the first U.S. Post Office established in America's new possession of Alaska in 1867, Circle City – located on the banks of the Yukon River – holds the hon...

The discovery of rich gold deposits in the upper Yukon River in the late 1890s brought a massive rise in the number of ships plying Alaska waters. Especially in Lynn Canal, a part of the Inside...

"Russia has sold us a sucked orange," the New York World proclaimed after the U.S. government announced it was to purchase Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in the spring of 1867. And most...

When Archbishop of Vancouver Island Charles John Seghers journeyed down the Yukon River in November 1886, he had no way of knowing he would never return to civilization. The Catholic priest, who...

While many Alaskans celebrated Christmas on December 25, others from the Pribilof Islands to Nikiski to Sitka observe Christmas in January. That's because they observe the Russian Orthodox Church...

My two-year-old grandson is crazy about dinosaurs. So much so that we decorated his birthday cake with small brontosaurus, nanosaurus and T-rex replicas. He received an abundance of dinosaur-themed gi...

Anyone interested in the Klondike gold-rush era has heard of the infamous Klondike Kate, a dancehall gal who mesmerized miners with her moves. Kathleen Rockwell earned quite the reputation for her...

When John Green Brady, governor of the District of Alaska, was asked to create an exhibit to publicize the Great Land for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904, he decided to showcase...

What Alaska connection do England's King Edward VII, Al Capone's chief legal counsel, Albert Fink, and American presidents Warren G. Harding, Theodore Roosevelt and William McKinley have in common? Th...

Dubbed The Arctic Venus by newspapers across the globe, Helmar Liederman turned many heads as she strutted her stuff in 1922 during the Inter-City Beauty Contest – forerunner of the Miss America Pagea...

Many have heard tales touting the shenanigans of conmen like Jefferson "Soapy" Smith and a man named Hendrickson, better known as the "Blue Parka Bandit." But neither of them caused the demise of an...

Theories about how and when Alaska became inhabited with people ebb and flow like the state's rivers. Archeologists pretty much agree that Alaska's mainland was physically and ecologically a part of A...

As the days get longer and winter begins to wane, it's safe to assume that the boys of summer are preparing for another awesome season of baseball – a mainstay in Alaska for generations. Before Anchor...

An abundance of gamblers, con men and thieves made their way north following the discovery of gold in the Klondike in the late 1890s. And with no official lawmen to take care of evildoers, miners...

The second-largest earthquake in recorded history struck at 5:36 p.m. Anchorage time. Measuring 8.4 on the Richter scale, experts later upgraded it to 9.2 on the Mw (moment magnitude) scale as the...

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...