GREAT LAND

3,000 miles northwest of New York City there is a land for pioneers a frontier territory one day by air from the nearest letterbox [Music] this country is Alaska 3/4 mild and template 1/4 glacial and close [Music] mail that arrived by plane may have a dogsled run to reach the post-office this is the kind of paradox that you'll find in a modern frontier life in 586 thousand square miles only two dozen incorporated time some of them have a brand new look about them they've really just begun and you have a feeling that they're going to grow quickly some of them are bigger and busier full-grown cities old enough to have memories of their own the old Russian Church at Sitka is a memory a reminder of Alaska's strange and violent history Alaska's mainland and her islands were reached in the 18th century by explorers who sailed from Russia adventurers and trading men the men who settled Alaska in those early years at one of the schools of fur-bearing seal in the North Pacific they came first to these small key islands covered with the fur traders fortune there for the taking [Music] they landed first on the Pacific Islands called the illusions and the frivolous then drawn by the hope of wealth from the excitement of new territory they sailed on to the mainland pushing their way into a country of treacherous and bewildering contrasts [Music] part of this country had thrown up barriers of snow and ice hidden between them were steaming prehistoric pools bubbling up from the center of the earth [Music] in some places the frozen white silence stretched as far as a man could see then it would break the ice of a glacier shattering into the water below this was dangerous and unfriendly terrible [Music] you never knew when a cliff would break away beneath your feet [Music] you never knew when the ice would rise in a threatening tower of the court this was no place for a man deceptive [Music] but Alaska wasn't all unfriendly her southern coastline bathed in warm ocean currents was temperate and green [Music] men could build homes here and cities [Music] from the coast they traveled inland along the rivers and found what they had gambled on a luxuriant country rich in forest and animal life [Music] Alaska's natural wealth ran wild in the heart of the country [Music] in spawning season the rivers ran gold with the salmon fighting their way upstream [Music] the early Russian settlers who claimed this land had come for valuable pelts and in the rivers they found beaver and hockey they trailed alaska's fur-bearing animals deep into the interior the first wealth that they took from the country came from the precious coats of animals fur trappers discovered the long bitter winters of central Alaska in their search for animal skins Fox and Wolverine make weasel and mark news links and bearskin [Music] along with the richness of the land the first settlers found men who had learned to get along in Alaska's most rugged territory they were the Eskimos who lived on the frozen ice fields of the Arctic [Music] they were the elutes inhabiting the barren Islands that bear their name they were the Indians would known the country for many generations and carved their history and totems this country was called by the elutes something that sounded like Alaska the word meant great land by the middle of the 19th century Russia had grown tired of Alaska a wilderness of a province on another country she offered it for sale to the United States a big piece of land 586 thousand square miles in 1867 America bought this piece of land for seven million two hundred thousand dollars a few skeptics thought the price was fairly steep then just 30 years later they changed their minds in a hurt somebody found gold in the Canadian Klondike right next door to Alaska gold in the Klondike probably meant gold in Alaska the continents Northwest was stampeding everyone was going to lift his weight in gold they said it was just lying there on the ground they said there was enough to build a city [Music] instead they built their boomtowns out of old timber and they fought hard for the goal they fought the frozen ground and they fought each other it wasn't so easy after all [Music] still the goal was really there it was in the earth and it was washing away in the rivers some people got the ones who stayed longest and worked hardest winter and summer the ones who didn't die of the toll of the feet [Music] the boom ran out but the country grew stronger the men who stayed on had to work for what the land could give them they knew this and they were willing slowly the ground began to yield the tremendous mineral wealth that it held slowly alaska's pioneers built the industries that mined the country's mineral deposits today there was more than gold today they dig for silver LED and platinum they tunnel the earth pretend and copper [Music] they take marble from the ground and cold every year they take millions of dollars worth of minerals from the ground and they'll tell you that it's only the beginning in a very real sense this whole country is just beginning the men and women who are pulling up their stakes moving to the Alaskan territory today are pioneers in the new sense they're going to a country which is building and importing machines as fast as it can so at least they won't have to start with their bare hands [Music] [Applause] they will have machines but they're moving into a land whose population is still less than 100,000 that's not very many people for all that glass Alaska has more square miles of good farming and grazing land than it has been and most of that hasn't been touched there's really no limit to what these modern pioneers can build for Alaska but there's a lot of building to be done and a lot of plant probably these families have a long way to go once they arrived if they're going to settle in farming country they may have to travel a great distance inland the railroad may take them all the way but they'll soon discover that there are no more than 500 miles of railroad in Alaska if they travel by car they can cover more territory Alaska has 3,000 miles of road and a third of that is broad modern highway but however they traveled automobile or train or riverboat by the time they reach their destination they'll realize how much building there is still to be done no matter how much open territory there is land may have to be cleared to give Alaska room to grow new roads and highways may cut through Forest Lake towns and cities may spring up in the timber country Alaska's great lumber resources are needed for fuel or mining operations and for the building of home [Music] this is the first important job for the newcomer to Alaska putting up a whole [Music] when a man has his own house clean and new and strong against the weather then he's ready to go to work people who have never seen this farmland used to call Alaska and icebox but 65,000 square miles of Alaska looked and behaved pretty much like farming country anyway the land will grow wheats and dry cabbages and potatoes almost anything that you'd expect from farmland and the work is done with machine [Music] with so much work to do and so much land dicovered machines have a special importance for the Alaskan part because the roads are few and often poor he may even use an airplane instead of a car [Music] but working the land isn't the only important job to be done in Alaska today since the years of the first settlers fur has always been one of the territory's major exports [Music] the modern fur trader can raise mink in captivity or Fox he can produce a more valuable coat reading his animals scientifically in their native planet [Music] nothing is more important to Alaska today than her fishing industry her largest exports come from the annual catch of halibut herring and Cod and the great salmon haul valued at fifty million dollars here up and down Alaska's Coast over 100 calories operate to process the fish packed them and prepare them for shipping this kind of large-scale industry is building Alaska today by building her export path alaska's cities the old ones that remember the early settlers and the new ones that still smell of fresh paint are growing into industrial centers they're putting up buildings that are meant to last for a long time [Music] the territory's schools are expanding with her population growing up in a land that is still frontier there is a new generation a generation of Alaska [Music] growing up with a background that is still dynamic and unsettled these young people are learning to pioneer with the tools and methods of modern science the students at alaska's university acquire the most advanced techniques of study and research they are coming to understand the paradoxical balances of nature that characterize their life they are learning to investigate the land in which they live to examine its atmosphere and planet with the security of knowledge and a strong will for pioneer work Alaskans are building a modern world in a frontier territory [Music]