Bobby Brand, age 9, of Albany, N.Y., for his questions
How long and how wide is Alaska?
Alaska is more than a thousand miles long from north to south and more than 2,400 miles wide from east to west. The vast area is shaped like a rough and ragged square, with a trailing tail from each southern corners The tail from the southeast corner is the Panhandle, a strip of land bordered by Canada and facing the island‑studded ocean. The tail from the southwest corner is the Aleutian Islands which loop around like a necklace under the Bering Sea. The square body of Alaska, with its ragged shores on three sides, is but 1,000 miles wide. The extra 1,500 miles of width come from the Panhandle and the sprawling Aleutians.
The total area of our 49th state covers about 586,400 square miles. It is twice the site of Texas and one‑fifth a s large as all the 48 other states put together. Two fifths of the huge new state is within the Arctic Circle, a land of the midnight sun. The northern border faces on the chilly Arctic Ocean. The northernmost point is Point Barrow, a little more than 200 miles from the North Pole.
At the Bering Strait, the western shore of Alaska reaches out a finger of land towards Asia. Hero the two continents, Asia and North America. are only 53 miles apart. Islands in the stt‑:pit bring them even clas.;r. Two small islands, separated by three and one ‑half miles of water, straddle the International Date Line. Tray are the Diomede Islands. Nobody lives there, but the eastern Diomede is American, the western Diomede is Russian.
The smooth eastern border of Alaska is shared with the great land mass of Canada. The three other borders face the Arctic Ocean, the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The ragged, jagged coastline is 2,600 miles long and there are so many thousands of off shore islands that no one has counted them Many of these isles are the peaks of sea flooded mountain ranges.
Some 200, 000 square miles of Alaska and lofty mountain country, among which stands Mount McKinley, now the highest peak in the United States, mother 150,000 square miles is swamp and frozen tundra land. And the National Parks and monuments of Alaska cover an area larger than the state of Maryland.
Much of Alaska is unfriendly to human existence. But 60 percent of the vast area is ready, willing and able to support pioneers and settlers. So far, less than one percent of this is privately owned. and under cultivation. There are fertile valleys to be tilled. There are coal, gold, oil, gas and other minerals waiting to be used. Rich forests wait for the lumberman. There are seals and other fur‑bearing animals and salmon and other fish in the streams. hundred years ago, Alaska was considered a northern outpost. 1n 1869 the purchase of the vast territory from Russia for $7, 200, 000 was considered foolish. Since then, Alaska has grown to be a land of opportunity, the new frontier of the Twentieth Century.