Scouting, Volume 47, Number 1, January 1959 Page: 2
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Scouting Magazine and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.
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By
RAY W. SWEAZEY
Director
Interracial Service
SCOUTinG
The author in a hor-
roxved parka pauses to
pet two Husky puppies.
>
,
i ~ ' Alaska, the first
\.y new state since
Arizona and New
Mexico were ad-
mitted to the Union in 1912, became the 49th state
shortly before the close of 1958. Amid the furor of
adding a new star to the flag, which will be done next
July 4, people want to know what Alaska is like, and
Scouters are asking about Scouting in Alaska. You can't
know about Scouting there without learning something
about Alaska first.
I learned about both of them firsthand last April
on a trip to Alaska.
The location, topography, and culture of the inhabi-
tants make it different from any of the other 48 states.
Alaska would still be behind Russia's iron curtain if the
United States hadn't paid $7 million for it in 1867—
about two cents an acre. Siberia is only three miles
away across the Bering Strait.
Alaska is a state of extremes and violent contrasts.
The wind-swept coast and coastal islands are barren of
trees; elsewhere are heavy forests. In the southeast,
nearest to the rest of the United States, winters are
warmer than in Boston, New York, and Chicago, and it
rains the year round. Heavy snowfall will be washed
away by rain in a few days. In the interior, winters
are long and cold. Snow comes in August and streams
are ice-locked until June. For months, it may not be
warmer than zero and may get as cold as seventy below.
It is a land of many miles and few people. Alaska's
586,400 square miles would make 550 Rhode Islands
and more than two Texases. Yet Rhode Island has al-
most four times the population of Alaska, where each
person can have almost three square miles to himself.
There are 125 metropolitan centers in the United States
with more people than all of Alaska.
« mM
■ - ppvi
Photos by the author
Only fifteen cities have more than a thousand popu-
lation. Anchorage, the largest, is almost entirely a white
man's town. Since 1950, it has grown from 12,000 to
30.000 people, with another 30.000 in the suburbs.
Fairbanks and suburbs account for 35,000 more. Juneau
has an estimated 12,000 and Ketchikan, 7,500. Well
over half of the state's entire population lives in these
four cities.
The original inhabitants—approximately 40,000 na-
tives—Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts—live in those parts
of Alaska where they have always lived. About 5.000
of them have learned a trade, how to teach, or have
moved to the city for other work. White population, out-
stripping census figures, is estimated at 175,000, almost
all in cities.
In all Alaska, there are only about a thousand miles
of paved roads, running in a direct line from Seward
to Anchorage to Fairbanks, with short feeder roads off
this main artery. Secondary roads are not kept in repair
and are impassable more than half the year.
Alaska is the polar short cut for the world's greatest
airlines. It is dotted with 250 airfields and 40 sea bases.
In addition, bush pilots specialize in setting a plane down
wherever there is a small piece of open water, ice, or land.
Key cities are as modern as any in the world, with
plush hotels, excellent sanitation, and comfortable city
living. Out in the boondocks where the natives live in
numerous villages, the local roadhouses (hotels) usually
lack plumbing and electricity, and perhaps safe drinking
water.
The usual native village is small, perhaps only three
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 47, Number 1, January 1959, periodical, January 1959; New Brunswick, New Jersey. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth329273/m1/4/?q=%22%22~1: accessed June 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.