Tales Of Alaska S Bush Rat Governor

The former governor of Alaska recounts his childhood, education, war experiences, and political career

This volume offers both historical and contemporary perspectives on the office of the governor, covering all 50 states and providing a comprehensive examination of the executive branch at the state level. One of three titles in ABC-CLIO's About State Government set, this work offers comprehensive coverage of contemporary American politics at the state level. It explores the critical roles played by the governorship and state-level bureaucracies—both in managing the state's business and as a component of the overall national system of government. Written by some of the nation's foremost authorities on state politics, The Executive Branch of State Government chronicles the evolution of the state-level executive apparatus from colonial times to the present, emphasizing its current importance on the local and national political stage. Chapters examine the structure and function of the governorship and state agencies, the people who serve as governor and in those agencies, and the multitude of forces that impact their work. A separate chapter examines the particular characteristics of executive branches state by state.

Thousands of tourists flock to Alaska to hunt and fish in dramatic landscapes and on pristine waters. A network of guides and lodges caters to those men and women, and wildlife biologists track the animals to insure healthy populations. The Last Frontier has nurtured homegrown fishing and hunting legends for generations. The more than two dozen colorful characters highlighted in the book transcend the act of merely catching fish or shooting game. While the men and women are celebrated due to their incredible skills, it s their ability to raise positive awareness or help others to gain a greater appreciation for Alaska s fish and wildlife resources that separates them from others." Alaska s Fishing and Hunting Legends" celebrates many of these amazing personalities with a remarkable historical perspective combined with colorful anecdotes and new insights. Many of the historic images in the chapters discovered in family archives have never been published. It s certain to both entertain and serve as a treasured resource for all those interested in Alaska s history and outdoors lore."

The last book on Alaska politics came out over twenty years ago, long before the rise of the Tea Party and Sarah Palin and the decline of oil revenue and fisheries. With Alaska Politics and Public Policy, Clive Thomas has pulled together a diverse team of specialists to update and expand our understanding of the political and policy realities of Alaska. This comprehensive volume lays out a detailed map of a political landscape that's physically huge, environmentally diverse, and constrained in economics and population. This book, the most comprehensive on Alaska politics and public policy published to date, explores how beliefs, institutions, personalities, and power shape Alaska politics and public policies. Understanding how these elements interact helps explain why and how some issues get dealt with by government in Alaska, why others get little attention, why some are tackled but cannot be resolved, and why others are not addressed at all. Combining the human element with the interrelationships within the political system gets to the very nature of politics. The book ranges from covering the basics of Alaska politics to providing detailed treatments of the factors shaping politics and the operation of government to providing in-depth analysis of issues and policies. Alaska Politics and Public Policy provides a wide range of information and analysis to a broad readership--from those with very little knowledge of Alaska politics to Alaska politics junkies. The book also includes an extensive glossary of terms related to Alaska and its politics. Two types of people were asked to contribute to the book: One group is political scientists and other social scientists. The other includes past and present state elected and appointed officials, as well as other political practitioners and observers, such as lobbyists and journalists. This combination of contributors enables the book to provide both conceptual and hands-on insights into its comprehensive coverage of topics ranging from the role of Alaska Natives to the influence of interest groups to the reality of the state's dependence on oil to the ambivalent attitude toward the federal government to the likely potential of the Arctic in Alaska's future.

The largest by far of the fifty states, Alaska is also the state of greatest mystery and diversity. And, as Claus-M. Naske and Herman E. Slotnick show in this comprehensive survey, the history of Alaska’s peoples and the development of its economy have matched the diversity of its land- and seascapes. Alaska: A History begins by examining the region’s geography and the Native peoples who inhabited it for thousands of years before the first Europeans arrived. The Russians claimed northern North America by right of discovery in 1741. During their occupation of “Russian America” the region was little more than an outpost for fur hunters and traders. When the czar sold the territory to the United States in 1867, nobody knew what to do with “Seward’s Folly.” Mainland America paid little attention to the new acquisition until a rush of gold seekers flooded into the Yukon Territory. In 1906 Congress granted Alaska Territory a voteless delegate and in 1912 gave it a territorial legislature. Not until 1959, however, was Alaska’s long-sought goal of statehood realized. During World War II, Alaska’s place along the great circle route from the United States to Asia firmly established its military importance, which was underscored during the Cold War. The developing military garrison brought federal money and many new residents. Then the discovery of huge oil and natural-gas deposits gave a measure of economic security to the state. Alaska: A History provides a full chronological survey of the region’s and state’s history, including the precedent-setting Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, which compensated Native Americans for their losses; the effect of the oil industry and the trans-Alaska pipeline on the economy; the Exxon Valdez oil spill; and Alaska politics through the early 2000s.

Alaska often looms large as a remote, wild place with endless resources and endlessly independent, resourceful people. Yet it has always been part of larger stories: the movement of Indigenous peoples from Asia into the Americas and their contact with and accommodation to Western culture; the spread of European political economy to the New World; the expansion of American capitalism and culture; and the impacts of climate change. In this updated classic, distinguished historian Stephen Haycox surveys the state’s cultural, political, economic, and environmental past, examining its contemporary landscape and setting the region in a broader, global context. Tracing Alaska’s transformation from the early postcontact period through the modern era, Haycox explores the ever-evolving relationship between Native Alaskans and the settlers and institutions that have dominated the area, highlighting Native agency, advocacy, and resilience. Throughout, he emphasizes the region’s systemic dependence on both federal support and outside corporate investment in natural resources—furs, gold, copper, salmon, oil—and offers a less romantic, more complex history that acknowledges the broader national and international contexts of Alaska’s past.

Alaska in the early 1950s was one of the world's last great undeveloped areas. Yet sweeping changes were underway. In l958 Congress awarded the new state over 100 million acres to promote economic development. In 1971, it gave Native groups more than 40 million acres to settle land claims and facilitate the building of an 800-mile oil pipeline. Spurred by the newly militant environmental movement, it also began to consider the preservation of Alaska's magnificent scenery and wildlife. Northern Landscapes is an essential guide to Alaska's recent past and to contemporary local and national debates over the future of public lands and resources. It is the first comprehensive examination of the campaign to preserve wild Alaska through the creation of a vast system of parks and wildlife refuges. Drawing on archival sources and interviews, Daniel Nelson traces disputes over resources alongside the politics of the Alaska statehood movement. He provides in-depth coverage of the growth of Alaskan environmental organizations, their partnerships with national groups, and their participation in political campaigns into the 1970s and after. Engagingly written, Northern Landscapes focuses on efforts to persuade public officials to recognize the value of Alaska's mountains, forests, and wildlife. That activity culminated in the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980, which set aside more than 100 million acres, doubling the size of the national park and wildlife refuge systems, and tripling the size of the wilderness preservation system. Arguably the single greatest triumph of environmentalism, ANILCA also set the stage for continuing battles over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Alaska's national forests.

The journals of Richard "Dick" Proenneke are now available in an edited and annotated volume covering the years 1974 through 1980. The nation first became aware of the remarkable life of Dick Proenneke with the publication of One Man's Wilderness in 1973. Master of woodcraft and camp craft, keen observer of the natural world, mechanical genius, tireless hiker and journalisx, for 30 years Proennek lived a storied existense in a small log cabin her built in the Alaska wilderness. Proenneke was an active yet reluctant participant in the epic struggle to protect some of Alaska's wild lands for future generations of Americans.