Fun Facts About Alaska

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  • Average salmon boat is 37 ft. long.
  • 50% of U.S. Seafood production is produced in Alaska.
  • State Fish: King salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha).
  • King salmon weighing up to 100 lbs. have been caught in Alaska.
  • State Marine Mammal: Bowhead whale.
  • State Sport: Dog Mushing.
  • Alaska is the only state to have coastlines on three different seas: Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea.
  • Alaska has 34,000 miles of coastline.
  • Alaska has 3 million lakes.
  • Alaska has 29 volcanoes.
  • Alaska is home to North America’s tallest peak, Mount McKinley (known to the locals as Denali) which is 20,320-feet tall located in the Alaska Range.
  • Barrow, Alaska is the most northerly community in the U.S.
  • The name of Alaska comes from the Aleut word Alyeska, meaning The Great Land.
  • Alaska nicknames include The Last Frontier, Land of the Midnight Sun.
  • The Alaska state flag was designed by Benny Benson at age 13.
  • Juneau, Alaska is the only capital in the United States accessible only by boat or plane.
  • The US purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7,200,000 (about 2 cents an acre) and made it the union’s 49th state on January 3, 1959.
    Alaska is the largest state in the union, covering 570,373 square miles, approximately one fifth of the entire United States.
  • Alaska is so large that it is twice the size of Texas and the state of Rhode Island could fit into Alaska 425 times.
  • The population of Alaska is only 626,932 and compared to the population of bears in Alaska, there is 1 bear for every 21 people.
  • There are more active glaciers and ice fields in Alaska than in the rest of the inhabited world.
  • The largest glacier is Malaspina at 805 square miles.
  • The Arctic Circle is an imaginary circle around the globe where on December 21 the sun never rises for twenty-four hours and on June 21 for twenty-four hours it never sets.
  • Giant vegetables are common in Alaska due to the extremely long days in summer. Alaska has grown a record cabbage weighing in at 94 pounds.

Courtesy of Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute