Alaska  is a state in the United States of America, in the northwest of the North American continent. It is the largest U.S. state by area (by a substantial margin), and one of the wealthiest (per capita) and most racially diverse.
The area that became Alaska was purchased from the Russian Empire on March 30, 1867, for 7.2 million dollars. The land went through several administrative changes before becoming an organized territory on May 11, 1912 and the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959. The name "Alaska" was already introduced in the Russian colonial time, when it was only used for the peninsula and is derived from the Aleut alaxsxaq, meaning "the mainland," or more literally, "the object towards which the action of the sea is directed."[4] It is also known as Alyeska, the "great land", an Aleut word derived from the same root.

Capital Juneau:

Religion:

Alaska has been identified, along with Pacific Northwest states Washington and Oregon, as being the least religious in the U.S.According to statistics collected by the Association of Religion Data Archives, only about 39% of Alaska residents were members of religious congregations. Evangelical Protestants had 78,070 members, Roman Catholics had 54,359, and mainline Protestants had 37,156.After Catholics, the largest single denominations are Mormons with 28,956, Southern Baptists with 22,959, and Orthodox with 20,000. The large Eastern Orthodox population is a result of early Russian colonization and missionary work among Alaska Natives.In 1795, the First Russian Orthodox Church was established in Kodiak. Intermarriage with Alaskan Natives helped the Russian immigrants integrate into society. As a result, more and more Russian Orthodox churches. gradually became established within Alaska. Alaska also has the largest Quaker population (by percentage) of any state.In 2003 there were 3,000 Jews in Alaska.

Culture:

Some of Alaska's popular annual events are the World Ice Art Championships in Fairbanks, the Alaska Hummingbird Festival in Ketchikan, the Sitka Whale Fest, and the Stikine River Garnet Fest in Wrangell. The Stikine River features the largest springtime concentration of American Bald Eagles in the world.

The Alaska Native Heritage Center celebrates the rich heritage of Alaska's 11 cultural groups. Their purpose is to enhance self-esteem among Native people and to encourage cross-cultural exchanges among all people.

Food

Due to the northern climate and steep terrain, relatively little farming occurs in Alaska. Most farms are in either the Mat-Su Valley near Anchorage, or on the Kenai Peninsula. The short summer limits the types of crops that can be grown - primary crops are potatoes, carrots, lettuce, and cabbage. Despite this, the long summer days can allow these vegetables to reach record size. Alaska has an abundance of seafood, with the primary fisheries in the Bering Sea, and seafood is one of the few food items that is often cheaper within the state than outside it. Hunting for subsistence, primarily caribou, moose, and sheep is still fairly common in the state, particularly in remote Bush communities. An example of a traditional native food is Akutaq, the Eskimo ice cream, consisting of reindeer fat and seal oil and local berries.
Most food in Alaska is transported into the state from outside, and is relatively expensive due to high shipping costs.

History:

At the end of the Upper Paleolithic Period (around 12,000 BC), Asiatic groups crossed the Bering Land Bridge into what is now western Alaska. At the time of European contact by the Russian explorers, the area was populated by Alaska Native groups.
The first European contact with Alaska occurred in the year 1741, when Vitus Bering led an expedition for the Russian Navy aboard the St. Peter. After his crew returned to Russia bearing sea otter pelts judged to be the finest fur in the world, small associations of fur traders began to sail from the shores of Siberia towards the Aleutian islands. The first permanent European settlement was founded in 1784, and the Russian-American Company carried out an expanded colonization program during the early to mid-1800s. Despite these efforts, the Russians never fully colonized Alaska, and the colony was never very profitable. William H. Seward, the U.S. Secretary of State, engineered the Alaskan purchase in 1867 for $7.2 million.
In the 1890s, gold rushes in Alaska and the nearby Yukon Territory brought thousands of miners and settlers to Alaska. Alaska was granted territorial status in 1912.
During World War II, three of the outer Aleutian Islands — Attu, Agattu and Kiska — were the only part of the continental United States occupied by the enemy during the war. Their recovery became a matter of national pride. The construction of military bases contributed to the population growth of some Alaskan cities.

Alaska was granted statehood on January 3, 1959.
In 1964, the massive "Good Friday Earthquake" killed 131 people and leveled several villages.
The 1968 discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay and the 1977 completion of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline led to an oil boom. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in the Prince William Sound, spilling between 11 and 35 million US gallons (42,000-130,000 m³) of crude oil over 1,100 miles (1,600 km) of coastline. Today, the battle between philosophies of development and conservation is seen in the contentious debate over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.