Agriculture and Economics of Alaska

Alaska has a population density of about 1 person per square mile. The widely temperature which vary from 60 to 30 degree F (in costal area) and 70 to -2 degree F (inland area). In the summer, the climate of Alaska is suitable for crops like carrots, hay, potatoes, corn, and cabbage.

Alaska has a world record carrot of 19 lb and a 106 lb cabbage! Other word record vegetable: 39 lb turnip, 63 lb celery, 65 lb cantaloupe.






The 318 types of soil are important for agriculture. Most of them are not fertile for agriculture.

Alaska leads USA as the place with best commercial seafood. Cattle, pigs, sheep, bison are the main animal from farms.

Even if Alaska is the largest state, with a total of 365 million acres, only 1 million acres are farmed.

I do believe that in the future, the population of Alaska will increase. That will increase the agriculture demand, with a more soil destruction (unless the agriculture will change to organic agriculture).

Sources:

www.agclassroom.org/
www.recordholders.org
http://community.adn.com/sites/community.adn.com/files/images/CabbageLo.preview.jpg

Alaska’s similarities with Appalachia and the Ozarks

The predominant mountains in Alaska are the Alaska Range. They have some similarities with Appalachians. For example, the length of Appalachian mountain is 480 km and the length of Alaska Range is 650 km. The highest is mount Denali from Alaska Range, which is actually the highest from the entire USA. Both mountains were barriers in the past, but for two different aspects. The Appalachians were barriers for human expansion while the Alaska Range is a barrier for moist air from NW of Gulf of Alaska.

Fig 1. Alaska Range

The highest mountain from Alaska Range is Mount Denali or Mount McKinley. This mountain is made out (mostly) from granitic pluton and has been uplifted by tectonic pressure. The move of tectonic plates raised the altitude of the mountain but the erosion of the sedimentary rock stripped away some of it.

Fig 2. Denali Mountain

Also, there is a weather station near the summit of Denali. This belonged to a Japanese alpine club and was donated to the international Arctic Research Center.

If you are visiting Alaska Range, you can enjoy the view of these beautiful places from different location. If you are in the NW of mount Denali, you can spend the night at “Eureka Lodge”.

And don't forget: In Alaska Range it is pretty cold, so make sure you have thick clothes.

Resources:

www.wikipedia.com

http://www.ipy.org/images/uploads/IMG_5712_resize.jpg

www.destination360.com

Alaska's connection with the Bypassed East

Alaska is not located near the Bypassed East but we can call it Bypassed Nord West. The climate is cold because it is located close to North Pole. 3 month out of a year is dark, so that means that agriculture is limited in this period. But when 3 months of day light is present in Alaska, on some part of Alaska the agriculture is possible (Matanuska Valley, Kenai Peninsula). The primary crops are cabbage, lettuce, carrots, and potatoes. Check out the Alaska State Fair if you are visiting Alaska in the late September!

Indians were located here before merchant from Russia came. Some of them moved in the Alaska settlements. More than that, the gold rush from late 19^th century brought many immigrants from different places.

This is a picture of the mountains from Matanuska Valley:

Alaska's temperature are indicated in the following image:

As I said, don't forget to visit Alaska State Fair.

Sources: Wikipedia.org

http://esp.cr.usgs.gov

http://www.buyalaska.com

http://www.jackrydermusic.com

http://www.city-data.com/states/Alaska-Industry.html

Alaska's Manufacturing

Do you guys eat fish? I love Alaskan Salmon. If you eat fish and you should tried smoked Alaskan salmon. The reality is that Alaska has a good fish processing industry. I don’t know how expensive is to buy fish there, but it might be cheap. Or maybe not. If you have a lot of ocean/sea water and all the condition for fishing, that does not mean that the fish will be really cheap to buy. An example which I personally experienced is the expensive fish from Italy. Even if this country has a lot of sea coast, the fish is stil expensive…

Alaska’s manufacture is also centered in petroleum and the processing of lumber. Of Alaska’s top 10 employees, five of them are engaged in petroleum industry (example ARCO, VECO).

Other industry group is in the fields of printing and publishing.

With the growing of manufacturing produces, the wages of Alaskan people raised, too. This grow was at a rate of 3.6% in 2000. The largest industry in 2000 were services (about 20% of total earnings), state and local government (17%), transportation (10%)

Sources:

http://livingindryden.org/images/excursions/lumberStickley11292005B.jpg

http://www.city-data.com/states/Alaska-Industry.html

www.canada-photos.com

http://static.panoramio.com

Megalopolis in Alaska

The biggest cities in Alaska are:

42 % of Alaska’s state population live in Anchorage. This city is located between the Chugach National Forest and the shores of Cook Inklet. This city is well known for art and culture, world-class entertainment, sorting events. This city is considered by many as a place people are proud to call it home.

Beautiful pictures of Anchorage city:

I was wondering how it feels to live in a city which is actually pretty small, but is considered largest city from the Alaska’s state. How would somebody feel if he/she would move to a real megalopolis city? I used to live in a small village of about 1000 people, until I was 5 years old. When I moved to a “big” city of about 50,000 people, I could not believe how so many people live in the same place. Finally, when I moved to LA, I experience the life of living in a megalopolis.

Another city is Fairbank, which has a population of about 30,000 people. The city location on the globe gives almost 22 hours of light. With so much day time, this is a perfect city to visit.

BTW, did you know that in July, there is an Eskimo-Indian Olympics? For more information, you can visit http://www.weio.org/. The competition has unique games, like: Alaskan, High Kick, Kneel Jump, Indian Stick Pull, Eskimo Stick Pull, or Drop The Bomb.

This picture shows 2 players competing in the game: “Drop the Bomb”.

Alaska's Foundation of Human Activity

Did you guys know that one of the first populations of Alaska was Indians? Like other parts of USA, Indians already existed before European colonization. My question is: what Indians were doing there in that cold climate? How did they get there from all the places? They were located on the north east interior, probably because this part of Alaska has large agriculture opportunities. Eskimos really did make out a good amount of population (you can take a look at this interesting youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-XP30aG8bE) .

Aleuts were also the main population of Alaska. Their name was given by Russians traders in the 18^th century. In European exploration of Alaska began in 1741 and in 1792, a few fur trade companies were established.

Why Russian traders did not established in Alaska? The climate of Russia and Alaska is pretty much the same; for some reasons, Alaska did not appeal that good to Russians.

Alaska was purchased from Russian in the 19^th century and most of the late immigration came from USA. The Gold Rush of late 19^th century and the Oil Boom of 1970s contributed to Alaska’s increase of population.

This is the check which was written for the Alaska's purchase:

Some facts from www.city-data.com show that urban population increased from 64.5% in 1980 to 67.5% in 1990 and between 1995 and 1998 the population increased 2.1%. All these numbers indicates that Alaska’s population increases. But is this following the general trend of increasing USA’s population or it is Alaskan specific??

Resources:

http://www.drgeorgepc.com/AlaskaHistory.html

http://www.city-data.com/states/Alaska-Migration.html

Alaska’s Geographical Patterns of the Physical Environment

Taking in consideration physiographic regions, Alaska can be classified based on four main parts: Interior Plains, Rocky Mountain System, Intermontane Plateaus, and Pacific Mountain System:

Most people live in Pacific Mountain and valleys which connect Pacific Ocean. The highest mountain is Mountain McKinley (20, 320 feet), which is located in Alaska Range. An extension of the Rocky Mountains on the Alaska territory is Brooks Range, which has the highest peak relatively small (9,020 feet). Between the two mountan systems, Rocky and Pacific, we have Intermontane Basin and Plateau regions, where the largest river system (Yukon) is located.

How much it rains in Alaska? Well, this depends on location. In some places there are pretty high amount of precipitation and other barely gets any. The Pacific west coast receives as much precipitation as the states from the South- East of USA. Closer to Artic Pole, we have less precipitations. The central part of Alaska gets pretty much same precipitation as the central of USA.

If Russians knew the amount of resources from Alaska’s soils, they would have never sold it. If you search on the Internet to see a map with the amount of gold in Alaskan soil, you would probably want to move there.

Also, did you guys know that Alaska had a gold rush in 1898??? Check out this 8 min video:

Click here for the video

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dawson_City_Lookout_Yukon_River_3264px.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dcsYMTyZcE

Alaska’s Regions and Themes

As the following picture indicates, Alaska can be divided in the following climate regions: South Central, West Coast, Western Maritime, Easter Maritime, Interior and Arctic:

Looking at the map, we are able to understand why Alaska belonged to Russia: because was close located by the east side of Russia.

Regarding population distribution, we have about 65% of the entire Alaskan population living in the urban area (2). The total population is 698,473 as of July 1^st, 2009 (3), which ranks Alaska as the 47^th state based on the population number. The level of poverty is 7.7% in 1999, which is really low in contrast with the level from 1969 census, when the level of poverty was 35%.

The level of poverty from some states are as high as 25-50%. For example, some parts from California have a poverty rate of ~20%-28% and some parts of Texas has a level as high as 50%. I was wondering why the level of poverty in Alaska is so low? One thing is for sure: Alaska’s agriculture is limited because of weather’s temperature. But how can they keep up and provide jobs for majority of population? Fish industry can provide some jobs, but other than that what other opportunity are up there? For curiosity, I searched on the Internet and I found that tourism provide a good number of jobs as well as petroleum industry…

Resources:

http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/759_persons_below_poverty_level_by_state.html

Why Alaska is my favorite place?

I did not have a chance to visit Alaska yet, but I believe that this is my favorite place to live. I was born in a cold climate, close to Russia and I really miss having snow at least 6 months in a year. The other 6 months I would prefer to enjoy the rainy days, with green vegetation and just a few sunny days.

I watched a few movies which were filmed in Alaska, and the geographical aspect made me forget about the movie’s plot. I hope that one day I will be able to live in this wonderful state.

Some people agree that too much night time can be the cause for depression. Well, I don’t consider myself special but I do not agree with this and I will like to try and see how I feel with 67 days with no sun, at the Borrow location (highest Alaskan north location). I think I will probably suffer of depression in the summer time (84 days with continuous sun light).

A few facts about Alaska: it is the largest state from USA; it was purchased from the Russian Empire in the late 19^th century; has the longer coastline that all the other US states combined; is the least religious state in the US .

And BTW, Alaska is pretty big:

Picture's source: wikipedia.org