Though often called the Bermuda Triangle’s little cousin, the Alaska Triangle is probably better considered the big cousin. Covering a vast region that links Anchorage, Juneau, and Utqiagvik, this eerie expanse has witnessed over 20,000 disappearances since the 1970s- averaging a staggering 2,250 vanishings each year. That’s more than six per day and far exceeds the Bermuda Triangle’s infamous track record.
So, what’s going on here? Could it be the pull of unexplained magnetic forces? The work of extraterrestrial beings?
A shroud of political intrigue? Or is it just the harsh wilderness, unpredictable weather conditions, and rugged terrain, combined with the unholy vastness and remoteness that famously characterize Alaska? Today, we’ll be looking at why so many people steer clear of Alaska, and how, though such an empty and inhospitable place, it came to be known at all.
Alaska’s is derived from the Aleut word “Alyeska,” meaning ‘The Great Land,’ and the name is fitting. Covering an area of around 665,000 square miles, Alaska is the largest state in the USA- it’s so massive, it’s equal in size to one-fifth of the rest of the USA. To put that into perspective, if you placed Alaska over a map of the lower 48 states, all the way from Georgia to California.
And of the almost 12,300 miles of coastline in the entire U. S. , around 6,600 of them, over 50%, belong to Alaska.
Alaska is about as unknown to humans as the world’s oceans. Despite having over 365 million acres, human civilization has only settled 160,000 acres of it. That’s less than 1/20th of 1 percent of the state, making it almost completely undiscovered.
Alaska is truly the last great wilderness in the United States. The state is so big that even if you could see one million acres of it every day, it would still take you a year to see the whole thing. So what’s actually in Alaska, if there’s so little human settlement?
First of all, mountains. Alaska is an extremely rugged and mountainous territory. It boasts 17 of the 20 highest mountains in the US, including North America’s tallest peak, Mount McKinley, which stands at over 20,200 feet high.
Alaska’s mountains compose three main ranges: the Brooks Range, the Alaska Range, and the Aleutian Range, which stretches out far into the Pacific Ocean. Below and between these mountain ranges lie dense forests, glaciers, and tundra- a kind of biome where tree growth is hindered by freezing temperatures and short growing seasons. Alaska is also a land of many lakes and rivers.
The state has 40% of the United States’ water resources within its bounds. The 86,000 square-mile area of Alaska that is covered by water could fit the City of Los Angeles 183 times, or, Minnesota once. Of the 3,000,000 natural lakes to be found in Alaska, around 3,200 are officially named.
Its 12,000 rivers taken altogether, run a total of 365,000 miles through the landscapes, and less than 1%, or around 3,100 miles of these, are officially designated as wild and scenic. And that’s just the liquid water. As for the frozen kind, well, it just so happens that 5% of Alaska, or 29,000 square miles of it, sits under glaciers.
We’re talking about around 100,000 glaciers. That’s over half of the whole world’s glaciers. As a state that is far more wild than tame, the Alaska State Park System is the largest in the United States by far, with 3.
2 million acres to its name. And the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve in Alaska, covering 13.
2 million acres, is the biggest national park in the country and can fit Yellowstone in it 6 times over. And so, unsurprisingly, the biggest state park in the United States- Wood-Tikchik State Park- is also in Alaska. Comprising 1.
6 million acres of wilderness, the park is over 8 times the size of New York City. With such quantities of frozen and flowing water, and the tundras and high mountains making up Alaska’s geography, it is characterized by what can only be called an extreme climate and environment. In North America, Alaska ranks easily among the highest on the list of places prone to extreme weather.
Temperatures in the winter can go as low as - 60 degrees below Fahrenheit (-26 below Celsius). It’s one of the many barriers Alaska poses to permanent, and even temporary, human settlement. You’d be forgiven for thinking, “well, that’s just the winter, half the year, doesn’t it warm up later.
” But unfortunately, in Alaska, the cold obeys other laws than what most of us come to expect as normal. The effects of the cold temperatures influence the Alaskan environment throughout the year. An impressive 85% of Alaska is covered by permafrost--permanently frozen ground.
Some of the top-surface of the permafrost thaws and freezes periodically with the seasonal variation in sunlight, and that, as we’ll see later, is for us another place where problems start. It will make some sense then, that Alaska has an extremely small human population, given such climatic conditions. But the same doesn’t go for wildlife.
Most of America’s salmon, crab, halibut and herring come from Alaska. And while grizzly bears in the lower 48 states have been considered a threatened species since 1975, there is no such problem in Alaska, where there’s over 32,000 grizzlies. In the whole of the lower 48 states, there are fewer than 2,000 bears remaining, while in Alaska, there’s one grizzly bear for every 21 people.
Alaska isn’t just defined by its geographical enormity or its astounding wildlife—what truly sets it apart is its emptiness. Despite its massive size and natural wonders, Alaska feels almost untouched, with astonishingly little human settlement dotting its vast, rugged landscapes. This state, the biggest in the US by far in physical size, is one of the smallest when considering its human population.
There are only around 730,000 people living in Alaska, almost half a million less than the population of Rhode Island, the smallest US state. The population density of Alaska is one person per square mile, making Alaska the state with easily the lowest population density of all the others. By comparison, the average for the rest of the nation is 98 people per square mile.
The density of Wyoming, a notoriously empty state, is still 6 times higher than that of Alaska. Statistically speaking, this makes Alaska one of the loneliest and emptiest places for a human to live in. While the population density gives us an average of how few humans there are in the whole state, the reality is even more extreme.
Over 80% of people living in Alaska live in urban areas, and of these, most live in just a few cities- Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau, the capital of Alaska. And though these are technically cities, their populations pale in comparison to the great American cities, like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. In California, there are 258 cities larger than Juneau, and for Californians, most of these cities are towns, neighborhoods even.
In fact, only 3 settlements in Alaska are home to more than 10,000 people. Just under 40% of Alaskans live in Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska, and a little under 9% of Alaskans live in Juneau and Fairbanks, meaning that around half of Alaskans live in these three cities. If it’s starting to seem like a lonely place, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
What makes Alaska even more remote and isolated is just how inaccessible it is. A great number of its cities and towns can only be reached by boat or plane. This is the case for Juneau, the only capital in the US that isn’t accessible by car.
And the roads themselves in Alaska are remarkably few and far between. In fact, there are only 17,000 miles of roads in Alaska. Ranked among other US states, only New Hampshire, Vermont, Delaware, Rhode Island, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia have fewer road miles than Alaska.
By comparison, Texas, the second largest state in the US, has the most road miles of any state, clocking in at over 650,000 miles. California, the third biggest state, comes in second place, with just under 400,000 road miles. The United States has a total of 8,400,000 road miles, of which only 0.
4% are on Alaskan territory. This means that Alaska, despite the enormous area it covers, is one of the most inaccessible places on the planet. And this isn’t exactly done by choice.
In fact, the climate, remote location and low population of Alaska pose road construction and maintenance problems that simply don’t exist at lower latitudes. As an Alaskan saying goes, in Alaska there are only three seasons: winter, breakup, and road construction. Stay tuned, you’ll find out why in just a moment.
Alaskans are forced to use airplanes, seaplanes and boats for transportation and shipping, even though the weather often makes this a laborious task. It means that a lot of the Alaskan summer is spent importing produce to sustain the population during the winter months, where shipping and transport are reduced once more by the forces of nature. In fact, the world’s largest and busiest seaplane base is Anchorage’s Lake Hood, where more than 600 takeoffs and landings occur daily on peak summer days.
This due include tourists, happy to enjoy life in Alaska for a short and comfortable summer window. Beyond the meager network of roads in Alaska, another facet of its inaccessibility is just how far away it is from the majority of humans on the American continent. While Alaska borders on Canada, those parts of Canada aren’t exactly the most populous Canadian provinces either.
Then there’s Alaska’s distance from the American mainland. The state is only 240 miles closer to New York than it is to Tokyo, which is around 3,50 miles away, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. It’s a 2 hour and 20 minute flight from Juneau to Seattle, and over 6 hours of flying to get to San Francisco.
By comparison, it’s a 3 hour 50 minute flight from London to Istanbul, crossing all of Europe. The scarcity of human life in Alaska today is especially remarkable when you consider its deep roots in human history. Archaeologists believe that Alaska was among the first lands in the Americas to be settled, with human presence dating back tens of thousands of years.
Early migrants are thought to have crossed into Alaska from Eurasia, either via an ancient ice bridge or by primitive boats It’s also believed that humans made themselves a permanent home in Alaska back in those times, with new evidence regularly surfacing to reinforce this theory. The ancient fish traps, called “weirs,” that were found in recent years on the Alaskan coast, suggest that humans did indeed establish permanent societies there as far back as 10,000 years ago. So why do so few people live in Alaska today?
And also, why have some people, for tens of thousands of years now, chosen it for a home in the first place? As you’ll soon find out, it may not be such a bad thing that Alaska is so remote, since the discipline, will, and survival skills required to get there are the surest test of who can survive in the state long enough to call it home. Let’s start with how the first Alaskans got to what is now, a long time later, the 49th state.
For a long time archeologists assumed that humans first crossed into North America 13,000 years ago, over what they call the Bering Land Bridge, a sheet of ice that extended from modern-day eastern Russia to Alaska during the last glacial period, which lasted from around 35,000 to 70,000 years ago, when the Holocene, our current interglacial period, began. archaeological evidence suggests that early Eurasian migrants didn’t just stop in Alaska- they embarked on an extraordinary journey, crossing ice bridges and rugged mountains to settle the inland wilderness of North America. From there, they ventured further, pushing southward toward the equator.
The remains of ancient settlements and artifacts discovered along the American coasts offer compelling clues, painting a picture of determination and adaptability in the face of a harsh, untamed landscape. If the first Alaskans lived on the coasts, the traces they might have left went underwater long ago. Since at the end of the last glacial period, the earth warmed significantly, a lot of ice melted, and sea levels rose by about 200 feet (60 meters), leaving any possible evidence of human coastal settlements completely submerged.
Today, the classic story of a land migration across ice and mountains is evolving. New evidence and innovative theories suggest that the earliest Eurasian migrants may have taken a different route entirely. Instead of crossing vast inland wilderness, these pioneers may have hugged the Pacific coastline, island-hopping along the biodiverse kelp forests that thrive in the cool, rocky waters.
Stretching from Japan to Baja California, this underwater highway of life could have provided food, shelter, and resources, offering an easier and more sustainable path into the Americas. In this way, our earliest American ancestors dispersed and settled along the American coast, going all the way down to the south coast of Chile. The earliest evidence we have of a crossing is around 13,000 years ago, with successive migrations occurring over the next 7,000 years.
To understand this sudden movement of humans, it’s important to keep in mind that the warming globe combined with the retreat of glaciers made for a huge explosion of life. Flora and fauna spread rapidly over newly uncovered coastlines, offering an unimaginable amount of resources to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. When considering how many of these early migrants chose to stay in Alaska, it’s worth keeping your mind open to just how flourishing and plentiful Alaska might have been back then.
Insect evidence from the start of our current epoch, the Holocene, indicates that Alaska was still a hell of a cold place back then- at least for us. We have no way of knowing how well humans, coming out of the interglacial period, dealt with the cold; but it’s safe to assume they did so a little bit better than we do now. So, Alaska was and remains a much colder place relative to the lower latitudes most of us live in.
Average temperatures in the interior range from 45 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit (7-23 degrees Celsius) in summer, and about 20 to -10 degrees (-6 to -23 Celsius) in winter. That being said, in the summer, it isn’t rare that temperatures reach into the 90s (32 degrees+ Celsius), or that in the winter they drop all the way down to the -60s (-51 Celsius). Besides the extraordinary temperature range this is, to most of us these numbers, quite literally unimaginable.
But if you can prepare yourself adequately for the Alaskan cold, it can offer you a few unique advantages. First off is food-storage. Alaska, for any resourceful individual or tribe, is as plentiful as any other place.
Today, Alaska produces 60% of the United States’ commercial fisheries, including salmon, crab, cod, groundfish, shrimp, herring, sablefish, pollock, and halibut. It was no less bountiful long ago, with natives getting much of their sustenance from these same fish, while also hunting and feasting on seals, moose, elk, and other game, and using their remarkable knowledge of plants to gather up the huge variety of nutritious flora in their surroundings. Now, with temperatures regularly dropping below freezing, food can be stored for almost indefinite periods of time in Alaska.
Alaskans have long leveraged their unique environmental advantage to sustain their way of life. In a land where cold temperatures dominate, preserving foodstock is far less labor-intensive than in the warmer climates of lower latitudes, where heat spoils food quickly, and refrigeration costs soar. For generations, the natural refrigeration provided by Alaska’s frigid environment has made the process of sustenance and food preservation not just more efficient, but a key part of thriving in such a rugged landscape Impossible to ignore, though, is the severe cold that sets in on Alaska each winter, when sunlight ranges from scarce to nonexistent.
The town of Barrow, at the northern tip of Alaska, has a prolonged polar night that starts in November- which means entire months without a single ray of sunlight- the most important source of heat there is. The average year in Barrow has temperatures varying from -19 (-28 degrees Celsius) to 47 degrees fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius), with the coldest temperature on record clocked at -56 degrees Fahrenheit (-48 degrees Celsius) on 3rd February, 1924. While this sounds terrifying, native Alaskan tribes as well as people currently living there have grown used to having a sufficient stock of dry wood, ready to burn all winter.
And besides the simple fact that food can be stored for so long in Alaska, there’s the effect of seasonal daylight on the yield of crops and other vegetation. Because of where Alaska sits on the earth’s axis of rotation, summer days there generally peak with around 20 hours of daylight; and some northern towns, like Barrow, have a long, luminous summer that follows the endless night of winter. On May 10th the sun rises, and then hangs in the sky for three months.
The effect of this on vegetation is remarkable. Common vegetables can grow to enormous proportions, and often end up with a much sweeter taste than crops from lower latitudes. In recent years, a 138-pound (62 kilogram) cabbage, a 65-pound (29 kilogram) cantaloupe, and a 35-pound (15 kilogram) broccoli have ranked among some of the finest prizes.
So for those that can prepare adequately for Alaskan winters, the benefit isn’t merely that agricultural produce and gathered foods can be stored longer. It’s also the foods themselves, which grow to fantastical volumes and possess high nutritional values. While Alaska’s extreme swings in temperature and daylight might seem daunting, the real danger lies elsewhere.
Here, it’s not the predictable extremes that pose the greatest threat- it’s the unpredictable that truly makes Alaska a land of risk and wonder. And what that means primarily in Alaska is the day to day weather. More like minute by minute.
The variation in weather patterns in Alaska is common, severe and sudden. Now, let’s talk about Alaska’s road networks—or the lack of them. Even if Alaska had millions of residents demanding highways, travel by boat or plane would still reign supreme.
Why? Because permafrost, which blankets a staggering 80% of Alaska, makes building infrastructure a herculean task. Roads and buildings here don’t just sit still; they shift, sink, and crack as the ground below freezes and thaws with the seasons.
It’s a constant battle against nature, where the land itself refuses to stay put. Add onto this the cost of shipping building materials that far north, and paying the laborers a living-wage, and you have the reason why there are so few roads in Alaska. Keep in mind, Alaska’s small population comes with unique challenges.
The demand for essential goods is relatively low compared to other states, but the cost of importing those goods- thanks to Alaska’s vast distances and remote location- is extraordinarily high. Alaska’s soaring cost of living makes it one of the most expensive states to call home. While the population has fluctuated with the discovery of oil and gas, the fishing industry boom, and other natural resource-driven opportunities, the overall trend of migration into Alaska has remained largely unchanged since humans first ventured there.
It’s unlikely that this will shift dramatically anytime soon. As a result, don’t expect Alaska’s road system to ever resemble the interconnected highways of the lower 48 states- here, the wilderness reigns, and the infrastructure reflects that reality. To truly grasp the magnitude of building roads in Alaska, let’s look at the Alaska Highway, a feat of engineering built in 1942 by the U.
S. Army Corps of Engineers. This wasn’t just any road project- it required an army of 11,000 soldiers and engineers, 16,000 civilians, and 7,000 pieces of equipment.
The final cost was a staggering $185 million in 1942 dollars- the equivalent of over $3. 5 billion today- making it the costliest infrastructure project of the Second World War. And for all that money invested, the highway didn’t even cut that far into Alaska.
It connected Dawson Creek, B. C. , Canada to Delta Junction, Alaska, at the 64th Parallel- Alaska reaches all the way up to the 71st Parallel, well inside the Arctic Circle.
And today, at only 80 years of age, the Alaska Highway is already suffering heavily from degradation and disrepair, thanks to the harsh Alaskan climate and the scarcity of resources and funding to maintain it. There’s more to Alaska’s population challenges than just its harsh environment. While natural causes- like the extreme cold, isolation, and rugged terrain- play a significant role, the relationship between culture and environment has been equally important in shaping Alaska’s history of population and depopulation.
Over the centuries, this dynamic has influenced how communities adapt, thrive, or move on, revealing a complex relationship between the land’s demands and human resilience. While one culture can deal with and incorporate a problem, another can find it a good reason to flee and never return. Anthropologists guess that around 80,000 people lived in Alaska by the time of contact with Europeans, which began in the mid-1700s.
From then on, a sharp drop in population occurred, and the numbers didn’t return to their pre-contact level until World War II, although the native populations never fully recovered. The reason for the sharp drop was primarily the surge of epidemics and violence which contact with Europeans brought on the native Alaskan populations. The Anthropocene- the epoch where humans became the dominant force shaping the planet’s environment and climate- is often traced back to the 13th and 14th centuries, with the wave of European colonizations.
This global expansion didn’t just alter landscapes; it brought profound and often devastating changes to local cultures, flora, and fauna across the world. While reliable census data for Alaska’s population before its purchase by the United States in 1867 is scarce, the first official American census in 1880 paints a stark picture- just over 33,400 people called this vast land home. To put that in perspective, this meant a population density of 0.
005 people per square mile- or a staggering 20 square miles per person. Compare that to today’s figure of roughly 1 person per square mile, and you begin to grasp just how empty and untamed Alaska was in its early days under American control. Now, as just mentioned, Alaska was a Russian territory until 1867, when the Tzar sold the territory to the U.
S. for $7. 2 million.
The Russians, unable or unwilling to manage such a huge swathe of remote land, wanted to be sure Alaska wouldn’t fall under Japanese hands- they needed an ally to occupy the territory instead. The Americans purchased Alaska for similar reasons, as a point of strategic defense. From that point on, America has had bases and a military presence in Alaska, and today Alaska serves as a critical point in America’s nuclear missile defense system.
In 1935, the American Brigadier General Billy Mitchell affirmed of Alaska, under oath before Congress that it was “the most strategic place on earth. ” Alaska is the closest U. S.
location to the center of the Northern Hemisphere, and it is far closer to many national capitals than most points in the lower 48 states. In that sense, it turns into a kind of advantage for Alaska to be relatively one of the most unpopulated. It might also explain why migration there has never been encouraged outside of economic contexts.
Within 20 years of that first 1880 census, the population would double in Alaska, rising to around 63,600 people by 1900 when the Gold Rush of 1896-1897 was over, and by which time Alaska had become world famous. In 1896, a massive flood of settlers called ‘Klondikers’ poured into Alaska, heading north for the Klondike region, looking to make their fortunes in a time of serious economic depression. Of the 100,000 people who made the attempt simply to get to the Klondike region, only 30,000 made it.
The rest turned back or died along the way. This was because most Klondikers were massively unprepared for the hardship and fight against nature that awaited them, having no idea what they were getting into. One of the Klondikers, or stampeders, as they were called, who was drawn to Alaska in that period was 21-year-old Jack London, who would later become a great American novelist.
He had just dropped out of college to make his living as a writer, and arrived in Alaska with his brother-in-law and a haphazard crew on July 25, 1897. London was threadbare, gaunt, nearly starving, and hoping, like the other Klondikers, to fill his pockets in an Alaskan goldmine. And like the other Klondikers, what London found instead turned out to be quite the surprise, and would furnish him with the materials to make one of the great American literary careers.
By August 2, 1897 London arrived in Juneau. Three days later he was in Skagway, having paddled his way up there with five tons of supplies. This was where the reality of the frontier started to sink in, with London witnessing the horror of what was going on in the Alaskan hinterland.
In Skagway, London was forced to come to terms with White Pass Trail, which from Skagway wound up into the rugged interior and the Klondike. The conditions he witnessed left him with an impression of the brutality on the Alaskan frontier like few of us will ever know, and this would form the basis of some of his most well-known literary works. Originally designed for lightly loaded horses and experienced horsemen, Dead Horse Trail was torn to bits by the unmanageable traffic, the brutal inhumanity of the stampeders, and the general inexperience and carelessness of all involved.
At one point, while hauling over a hundred pounds of supplies up a treacherous mountain slope, Jack London spotted a pair of shoes poking out of the snow. Thinking little of it, he tugged at them- only to discover they were still attached to a man, buried alive by an avalanche just minutes earlier. This was on the Chilkoot Trail, a path notorious for its avalanche risks, which of course many stampeders ignored completely.
On April 3, 1898, the famous Palm Sunday Avalanche occurred on the Chilkoot Trail, killing 65 people. Native packers had warned the stampeders of the notorious avalanche risk on the trail in the springtime, but the stampeders, with their minds set on gold, ignored these warnings as they ignored much else. By the end of London’s ordeal, a year later, he was almost entirely crippled from the waist down, due to scurvy.
He ate his first vegetables in over a year in Anvik, on his way out, and by the end of June he was on the Bering Sea, shoveling coal on a steamer to pay his way out. Jack London returned to San Francisco with just four and a half dollars’ worth of gold to his name. Yet, what he brought back was far more valuable: a wealth of memories, trials, and life experiences that would forge him into one of the great American writers of his time.
Alaska asks a high price from those who wish to make it their home, even for a little while, higher still for those who think they can afford to be negligent of surrounding society and natural environment. The reward can be tremendous, but the cost can easily be your life. In Alaska, survival always comes first.
The pursuit of gold or fortune can wait- preparedness is an acquired instinct that no Alaskan takes lightly. And for good reason. Let’s explore just a few of the challenges that keep your average Alaskan on their toes, and why, quite simply, most people think twice about moving to this rugged, unforgiving land.
The avalanche risks in Alaska are high, with 170 avalanche deaths there from 1951 to 2023. While Colorado has more avalanche deaths, with 323 avalanche deaths in the same period, it’s important to remember that most avalanches are caused by humans. There are nearly 6 million people in Colorado, with millions of tourists coming every winter for the ski season.
Compare that to Alaska, and you’ll realize that lack of loose and melting snow is not what keeps the avalanche count in Alaska lower than Colorado’s. Then, from avalanches in the winter you get landslides and erosions in the summer. And with the melting ice each spring, flooding always follows, whether on the coast or in the rivers.
Ice-jams are also frequent. This is where ice blocks up a river until there is a large enough mass of water to push it all past the dam, resulting in what is, in effect, a tidal wave over the river flats. What’s more, with Alaska’s thousands of glaciers, glacial outbursts occur frequently, where the dam holding together a glacial lake bursts and the whole body of water suddenly pours off into the valleys below.
This was the case on August 6th, 2024, when the Mendenhall River, near Juneau, rose 16 feet (4. 8 meters) above its normal level near Auke Bay- all because of a glacial lake outburst flood in Suicide Basin, on the Mendenhall glacier. And with the warming climate, these problems aren’t going away.
Glacial lake outburst floods, uncommon on Mendenhall River in the past, have since 2011 increased dramatically in regularity, with Suicide Basin producing a glacial lake outburst flood ever year since. Even if we ignore the sudden calamity posed by glacial outbursts, the high groundwater imposed by glaciation and glacial melt year round in Alaska can severely affect coastal communities, from flooding, to contamination and buildup of pollutants, to quickened infrastructural decay. Another very important reason why Alaska is so uncommonly chosen as a place to live, is that it sits on 3 fault systems.
So, saying Alaska is seismically active would be putting it lightly. Between 2013 and 2018, there were around 150,000 earthquakes, 31 of which with magnitudes of 6 or higher. Alaska is not a place you come to if you’re scared the ground beneath you might give way.
Alaskans have to deal with fault ruptures, seismic shaking and landslides. It also has to deal with liquefaction. This is when seismic disruptions cause water-saturated sediment to lose its strength and act like a fluid, ruining any infrastructure that happens to stand on it, and putting lives in great peril.
What’s especially terrifying is that landslides and earthquakes in Alaska, when large enough, trigger tsunamis. At 5:36pm local time on March 27, 1964, an earthquake of magnitude 9. 2 occurred in the Prince William Sound region of Alaska.
The Pacific Plate lurched northward underneath the North American Plate, slipping in some places as much as 60 feet (18 meters). It lasted 4. 5 minutes, and to this day is still the second largest earthquake ever recorded.
In fact, the earthquake was so large that the whole Earth rang like a bell, and modern instruments recorded vibrations that had no precedents whatsoever. The earthquake spawned thousands of aftershocks, hundreds of landslides, huge submarine landslides, and scores of other secondary-effects. The most serious of these were the tsunamis triggered, which caused fatalities and other damages all the way down in Oregon and California.
But this was nothing compared to what some coastal Alaskan communities, like Whittier, Valdez, Seward, and Chenega, faced. Within minutes of the earthquake starting, tsunamis flooded some areas as high as 170 feet (51 meters) above sea level. Within four minutes of the earthquake, a 65-foot (20 meters) wave barrelled into Chenega, killing a third of its population.
All in all, the earthquake resulted in 129 fatalities sustained, and billions of dollars in property losses. Alaska’s dangers are countless: extreme weather, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, and limited search-and-rescue capabilities. Add to that the constant threat of losing critical infrastructure- power, communication, water systems, and clinics- or facing facility failures like collapsing bridges, washed-out roads, and hazardous spills.
Every Alaskan knows these risks intimately. Why? Because here, the number one rescue resource is yourself.
Unlike the lower 48, there’s no guarantee of outside help- it’s you versus the wild. And fundamentally, this is why there are so few people living in Alaska. As we’ve seen Alaska is a land of paradoxes, at once one of the most inhospitable places in the world and one of the most bountiful.
It’s a place where some find their true strength, resilience, and a self-reliant way of life; and where others find a cold, hard end. So, though Alaska will likely never have swarthes of humans flocking to it again, as they have repeatedly done so over the ages, it will always hold a certain awe over us. It will continue to draw those of us who are tempted and taunted by the wild life, out into its enormous wilderness to see if we have what it takes.
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