Alaska facts and facts about alaskas, from the Random Facts shelf.
16 facts on this shelf
The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers. A minute later they were both eaten by a killer whale.
Alaska is the largest US state by area. It is more than twice the size of Texas, the second-largest state.
In the late 1980s, musher John Suter raced teams of Standard Poodles in Alaska's Iditarod sled dog race. Their coats iced up badly in the cold, and the race later added rules limiting teams to northern breeds suited for Arctic conditions.
Fat Bear Week is an online contest from Katmai National Park in Alaska where people vote for the brown bear that bulked up the most before winter hibernation.
Texas is the second-largest US state by both area and population, behind Alaska in area and California in population.
The US bought Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million, about two cents an acre. Critics mocked the deal as "Seward's Folly."
Alaska is the largest US state, more than twice the size of Texas.
Denali in Alaska is the tallest mountain in North America, at 20,310 feet.
Alaska is the northernmost, westernmost, and technically the easternmost US state, because its Aleutian Islands cross the 180th meridian.
Alaska residents get a yearly payment from the Permanent Fund Dividend, which is funded by the state's oil wealth.
Alaska's capital, Juneau, can't be reached by road from the rest of North America, so people get there by plane or boat.
Utqiaġvik, Alaska, has about two months of polar night each winter.
Alaska has more coastline than all the other US states combined.
Alaska became the 49th state on January 3, 1959.
Alaska's flag was designed by 13-year-old Benny Benson in 1927.
Alaska grows peonies that bloom later than those grown elsewhere.