Contents

MAP

PROLOGUE   Alaska—a Sense of Scale

INTRODUCTION   Crossing the Next Frontier

BOOK ONE

The Land before Time (Prehistory–1728)

Mountains, Glaciers, and Innumerable Rivers

First Steps, Continuing Traditions

BOOK TWO

Lifting the Veil:
An Empire Up for Grabs (1728–1865)

The Czar Looks East

Spanish Entradas

Cook and Vancouver

Port des Français

Lord of Alaska

God Is in His Heaven

Limitations of Empire

BOOK THREE

Seward’s Folly: Two Cents an Acre
Becomes a Heck of a Deal (1865–1897)

Last Guns of the Civil War

The Telegraph Survey and Mr. Dall

Two Cents an Acre

Boston Men in the Pribilofs

John Muir Visits Glacier Bay

Sheldon Jackson’s Missionary Zeal

Untangling the Rivers

The Lewis and Clark of Alaska

Juneau, or Whatever Its Name Is

One for the Duke

BOOK FOUR

Go North: The Rush Is On (1897–1915)

Fortymile, Circle, and the Sourdoughs of Rabbit Creek

The Trails of ’98

Two Towns and a Railroad

One Man’s Summer Vacation

Last Stops of the Mining Frontier

Crest of the Continent

Copper, Kennecott, and One Heck of a Railroad

Preserving the Bounty

The Day the Sky Turned Black

BOOK FIVE

Interlude: The Calm between the Storms (1915–1941)

Alaska’s Railroad

The First Iditarod

Conflicting Views, Continuing Battles

Salmon on the Run

Thrill ’em, Spill ’em, but Never Kill ’em

Knocking around the Gates

Farmers in the Matanuska

Never the Same Again

BOOK SIX

The Forgotten Campaign:
World War II in Alaska (1941–1945)

The Rush to Get There

The Darkest Chapter

No Place to Fight a War

Victory

BOOK SEVEN

Postwar Rumblings:
Statehood and Earthquake (1945–1964)

Offspring of Victory

Logging the Forests

Cold War Standoff

The Forty-ninth Star

Oil Boom on the Kenai

A New Meaning of Wilderness

Earthquake!

BOOK EIGHT

North Again: This Time the Gold Is Black (1964–1980)

Black Gold

The Blue Canoes

The Long, Long Road to ANCSA

Working on the Pipeline

A Capital Move

The Permanent Fund

BOOK NINE

Whose Land? Competing Claims (1980–2001)

d-2 Becomes ANILCA

The Big One

Toward a New Economy

ANWR—2001

Postscript to an Era, Prologue to the Next


EPILOGUE   Alaska—a Sense of Scale


Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Searchable Terms

About the Author

Praise

Other Books By Walter R. Borneman

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher