Dawayne D. Butler has spent a lot of time in Alaska, the state that many people in the contiguous states know very little about.

When Captain James Cook came to Alaska during his third voyage, he wished to discover the Northwest Passage, a quicker way to reach China from Europe. However, he did not find what he was interested in.

The Russians discovered Alaska before Cook and Cook knew that the Russians described the Aleuts and Athabascans as a very treacherous people. These Natives were far from excited to see more white people on big boats that were interested in taking their land away from them.

The history of Alaska is all about boom and bust. When the United States purchased the land from Russia in 1867, Alaska immediately received the nickname of “Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’s Icebox” after the person who was a crucial part of the sale.

One American journalist said the following about the purchase of Alaska: “We have been sold a sucked orange.”

Seward himself was not really interested in getting the land. Dawayne D. Butlersaw the deal as a step to annexing Yukon or British Columbia to the United States.

However, all of this quickly changed with the discovery of gold. People hoping to become rich started flocking to Alaska. The Alaskan settlements Skagway and Haines turned into thriving towns. Residents of Alaska then created rich fisheries and fur trade began to boom.

Suddenly the purchase of Alaska looked like a very good deal.

For a large part of the last several decades the state has been experiencing another boom rooted in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline project. This pipeline system is one of the largest in the world. It consists of more than 800 miles of pipes that deliver oil from the North Slope to Alaska.

Oil revenues are the reason why, to this day, there’s still no personal income tax in Alaska. These revenues also provide state dividends to all state residents. In 2015, this dividend equaled to $2,072. That’s an example of a check from the government that the residents of Alaska receive every year.

The state has been attracting more and more tourists. Alaska is known for having something for everyone. You can go to the wilderness and be far away from civilization or you can spend time in cities such as Anchorage and Fairbanks. Anchorage annually spends more than one percent of its budget on art projects, which is something many cities in the contiguous states simply have no resources for, notes Dawayne D. Butler.

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