Alaska - Did You Know?

For those people out there considering a cruise to Alaska, but not sure what they will see.....perhaps consider the following lesser-known tidbits of information:

1. The first humans arrived in the Americas between 10,000 and 30,000 years ago. They crossed the Bering Land Bridge from Russia into Alaska. Anthropologists know that the ancestors of today's Alaska Natives have lived in Alaska for thousands of years. Visitors to Alaska can watch Native Dancers (such as the Naa Kahidi) perform song and dance that have changed little in thousands of years of history.

2. In 1741, Tsar Peter the Great of Russia sent explorer Vitus Bering to sail east from Siberia to Alaska. Russia claimed Alaska until 1867, when they sold it to the United States for $7.2 million. Sitka is a town that has maintained much of its Russian heritage.

3. The Klondike gold rush of 1897 caused the population of Skagway to swell from 1 person in 1896 to 10,000 in 1897. The population plunged after that, but many of the buildings during that time survived and have been preserved for all to enjoy.

4. Ketchikan is considered the Salmon Capital of the World, with 1.5 million cases of salmon produced annually during the 1930s. Those numbers have declined, but salmon is still an important industry of Ketchikan.

5. The Hubbard Glacier is the longest tidewater glacier in Alaska, boasting an open calving face over six miles wide. Glacier Bay National Park has one of the highest concentrations of tidewater glaciers in the world, most of them actively calving slabs of ice into the water.