Category: 49 History

Sun, February 14, 2016

Anniversary of Icebreaker Visit to Anchorage 1972

Anniversary of Icebreaker Visit to Anchorage 1972 By J Pennelope Goforth [caption id="attachment_4345" align="alignright" width="216"] BURTON ISLAND Brochure. Photograph courtesy Port of Anchorage Historical Folios 1958-1989, Folio 2, Section 1, Page 67. Welcome Aboard Coast Guard Icebreaker BURTON ISLAND WAGB-283, page 3.[/caption] Twenty four years ago on February 15, 1972, Anchorage had a special visitor just in time for the 1972 Fur Rendezvous: the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker BURTON ISLAND. The ship was one of nine icebreakers operated by the... (Read More)

Sat, December 12, 2015

Updates on the Canneries Initiative

Greetings, What a busy month for fisheries history. The Pacific Marine Expo was very successful. AHS shared a booth with the Kodiak Maritime Museum, and not only did this save money on booth fees, it was necessary to have at least two people at the booth at all times due to the traffic. Hundreds of people stopped by each day to share stories, ask questions, and over a dozen individuals became members. Special thanks to Katie Ringsmuth for designing the... (Read More)

Wed, December 09, 2015

Mottrom Dulany Ball: A Founding Father of Alaska

Sometimes one finds bits of history in the oddest places. Recently, the Alaska Historical Society was contacted by William Page Johnson, of Fairfax, Virginia, to let us know about a connection between one of his city's early residents and the state of Alaska. Mottrom Dulany Ball of Fairfax, Virginia, was instrumental in the earliest efforts toward the purchase of Alaska by the United States. According to Johnson, editor of The Fare Facs Gazette newsletter of Historic Fairfax City, Inc.,: "Unfortunately, Ball... (Read More)

Fri, November 06, 2015

Graphing the Sea Otter Hunt

by Richard Ravalli, William Jessup University The recent monograph by historian Ryan Jones entitled Empire of Extinction: Russians and the North Pacific’s Strange Beasts of the Sea, 1741-1867 is a valuable study of the Russian sea otter trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.[1] Not the least of the book’s contributions to fur trade scholarship is its appendix. Jones provides a list of hunting expeditions in the North Pacific, from Vitus Bering’s fateful mission in 1741 to 1800. As... (Read More)

Mon, August 31, 2015

Dreams of Over-the-Snow Travel

[caption id="attachment_3990" align="alignright" width="326"] Allan Air Sled. University of Alaska Fairbanks, Archives, Henry Boos Family Collection (72-123-17).[/caption] by Chris Allan The challenge of mechanized travel over snow vexed inventors for many years after the Wright Brothers introduced the world to motorized flight and Henry Ford filled America’s streets with automobiles. Beginning in the 1860s, a few tried and usually failed to use steam engines to power spinning barrels equipped with spikes for traction. Even so, by the 1890s some people were convinced that... (Read More)