Claire Rudolf Murphy - A Child's Alaska

Facts About Alaska:

Alaska pipeline bear

State symbols:

bird: willow ptarmigan

fish: king salmon

flower: forget-me-not

fossil: wooly mammoth

marine
mammal: bowhead whale

mineral: gold

motto: North to the future

sport: dog mushing

tree: Sitka spruce

nickname: Last Frontier

Taken with permission from Nancy Warren Ferrell's excellent student
geography book Alaska: A Land in Motion, published by the Alaska Geographic Society.

Origin of the name
Alaska comes from the Aleut word "alaxsxaq" or "agunalaksh" that means mainland or shore.

Population
626,932 (2000 census)

Land Features
space: 591,004 square miles, 16% of U.S. total area
highest point: Mount McKinley (also known as Denali), 20,230 feet above sea level, highest point in North America
number of active volcanoes: 40
coastline: 6,640 miles, 57% of the entire U.S. coastline

Water Features
longest river: Yukon River, 1,400 miles in Alaska, 1,770 total miles in Alaska and Canada, fifth longest river in North America
largest lake: Lake Iliamna, 1,000 square miles

Resources:

A primary class at Anderson Elementary School on Eielson Air Force Base worked on an art project representing the traditional art of the native peoples around Alaska.

Check out this site for a printable Alaskan map.

Look here for panoramic shots of Alaska.

Return to main A Childs Alaska page

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