Category: 49 History

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)

Wed, August 19, 2015

Peratrovich a true hero, but myth doesn’t match facts of historic Alaska vote

Editor’s note: The column below first appeared in the Alaska Dispatch News on Aug. 18. by Ross Coen Allow me to begin by stating unequivocally that I support efforts by Governor Bill Walker and numerous others to place Elizabeth Peratrovich on the revised ten-dollar bill. Her tireless advocacy for Native rights has certainly earned her a place among the heroes of Alaska. At the same time, however, we have a responsibility when honoring figures from the past to... (Read More)

Tue, August 11, 2015

Alaska Trail-Blazer: The Cat

by Chris Allan Few machines are capable of moving over Alaska’s snow- and ice-covered terrain, much less while hauling heavy cargo. The Caterpillar-style tractor is one such machine, and it caused a revolution in northern transportation, construction, and mining. During the 1910s and 1920s when the first Holt-brand tractors arrived in Fairbanks and Anchorage, they transformed what was possible. Suddenly a “cat train” could pull hundreds of tons of supplies over mountain passes and across rivers and through winter and summer without having to be... (Read More)