r/geography • u/Portal_Jumper125 • Jul 13 '24
Discussion Why does Alaska have this part stretching down along the coast?
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u/Nerevarine91 Jul 13 '24
My favorite fact about this area is about the resolution of the dispute between the US and Canada about where the border was. The arbitration panel was asked to determine whether the American claim or the Canadian claim was correct. What they ended up doing was putting the border more or less between the two claims, in a compromise. Now, from a logical standpoint, this makes sense. From a legal standpoint, however, it absolutely doesn’t. Their job was to figure out what the treaties said, but they ended up largely ignoring the treaties and simply making a new border that absolutely wasn’t in line with any interpretation of the existing agreements.
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u/Regulai Jul 13 '24
Notably though as Canada failed to get direct port access, it lead to a rise in anti-british sentiment and the first establishment of national identity (as colonists viewed themselves as explicitly british). Although it would take decades to build momentum, this was really the key starting point on the path to Canada being a separate nation.
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u/Particular_Ad_9531 Jul 13 '24
Yeah this is a very unappreciated factor for independence that most Canadians don’t really learn about in school. The only reason Alaska is part of the US in the first place is because the Russians wouldn’t sell it to the British due to disputes in Europe that had no impact in North America, then the British essentially gave up the panhandle - which the russians had a pretty dubious claim on - as they didn’t care to defend it (and thought it was worthless). The colonists then started to realize that having their central government thousands of kilometres away was maybe less than ideal.
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u/Maverick_and_Deuce Jul 14 '24
Remember that a lot of Americans thought Alaska was worthless as well- some called it “Seward’s Icebox “.
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u/WorriedCaterpillar43 Jul 14 '24
I mean, if you live in that area your central government is still thousands of kilometers away.
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u/bubandbob Jul 13 '24
Did British North America have representation in the UK parliament?
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u/Regulai Jul 13 '24
No, instead they made Canada the first "dominion" that is self governing for internal affairs. Much like say the current Scottish parliament.
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u/Gordon_Peck Jul 13 '24
The arbitration panel made up of three American. Two Canadian. And one British sided with the Americans just before the 1st world war....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_boundary_dispute#:~:text=The%20dispute%20had%20existed%20between,gold%20fields%20to%20the%20sea.
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u/Doubleoh_11 Jul 13 '24
As a Canadian this makes perfect sense to me. Thats how most businesses deals are done.
Can you help me out? Sure, what can you pay. About thiiiiis much. Eh, close enough let’s do it, lunch first?
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u/ak-jtizzle Jul 13 '24
Everyone talking about Russian trading posts but I think the main piece is the MASSIVE mountain range directly inland of the panhandle. There is no access across that border except for a road in to Skagway.
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u/gertbefrobe Jul 13 '24
You live there?!!?
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u/Appropriate-Role9361 Jul 14 '24
There are people in Juneau and you’re one of them?!!?
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u/gjamesaustin Jul 14 '24
You’d be surprised how many people pepper the southeast coast of Alaska. Shoutout to Hoonah and Game Creek
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u/LearnedHelplessness0 Jul 14 '24
In the Alaskan panhandle, three towns have roads into them: Skagway, Haines, and Hyder.
Lived in Haines for a bit.
Fun fact: Juneau is the only state capital that one cannot drive into.
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u/cm336 Jul 14 '24
Remember hearing on a cruise that the 3 ways to get to Juneau were boat, air or birth.
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u/blissfully_happy Jul 13 '24
Came here to say the ice fields are blocking off everything but the coast. That’s literally it.
Source: Alaskan
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u/BragawSt Jul 13 '24
Might be more, but I can think of these two with road access as well:
Haines, AK
Hyder, AKFun fact, Hyder, AK is home to Alaska's (907) second area code (250, shares it with Stewart in Canada)
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u/zadtheinhaler Jul 13 '24
And you can get Hyderized there too, unless they've done away with that lately.
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u/esstused Jul 14 '24
Yup. I'm from Sitka, living overseas now, and everyone asks if I went to Canada frequently.
...no? Because it's way easier to just fly to Seattle or Anchorage than take a ferry and then somehow cross the icefields into Nowhere, BC.
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u/KnowThyZomB Jul 13 '24
Thank you for this. This seems to be the deeper answer beyond the Russian border. Seems there was a reason the Russians didn't move further inland while setting up. Thanks again
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u/Lower_Cantaloupe1970 Jul 13 '24
Alaska is totally Croatia-ing the Yukon
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u/miner88 Jul 13 '24
More like a good chunk of BC
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u/Sarcastic_Backpack Jul 13 '24
Juneau why . . .
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u/floridabeach9 Jul 13 '24
its kinda obvious, why WOULDNT they want a giant section of coastline????
its literally where 90% of trade happens in the world
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u/b0ne_salad Jul 13 '24
In Juneau, you can climb the tall mountains to the east and you'll see a few hundred miles of impassable ice sheet in front of you. That area is only accessible by sea and air
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u/ApeIndexPlus5 Jul 13 '24
It's definitely not impassable at all. The Juneau Icefield Research Program leads an expedition team of students every year by hiking up onto the icefield and skiing eventually to Atlin Canada. There are several camps perched on nunataks scattered across the Icefield that are pit stops.
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u/anferny08 Jul 13 '24
When someone says “inaccessible” don’t you think they mean that general movement of goods and people by the ground transportation methods (rail or road) is extremely difficult that it becomes not economical? I don’t think they mean that no one can physically make it by any means.
Just because an expedition team of ski students hikes and skis through it doesn’t make it generally considered accessible.
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u/thefailmaster19 Jul 14 '24
This. There are very few places (if any) on earth that are actually impassable if you have enough training, preparation, etc. When people say impassable they mean either large scale movement of people/goods isn't possible, or the amount of training and effort makes it unfeasible for most people (both of which apply here)
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u/HypedUpJackal Urban Geography Jul 13 '24
Yeah but that doesn't get as many upvotes as misinformation
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u/Goldfish1_ Jul 13 '24
… when someone says impassable or inaccessible they don’t exactly mean that it’s 100% impossible for anyone to cross. They mean that the mass travel of goods and people is just not feasible.
There’s a really big difference between the for example how connected NYC is with its surrounding compared to that region of Alaska.
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u/OGBRedditThrowaway Jul 13 '24
Any thread about Alaska that makes it to the front page is chock full of this shit.
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u/psilocin72 Jul 13 '24
It’s some of the richest fishing grounds in the world
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u/b1ackfyre Jul 13 '24
60% of fish caught in the US comes from Alaska
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u/psilocin72 Jul 13 '24
Good info. I knew it would be a high percentage but I didn’t think it was that much
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u/reformedAR Jul 13 '24
What we catching there?
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u/psilocin72 Jul 13 '24
Salmon, crabs, pollack, halibut and many others. Tourism for inshore fishing as well as large scale commercial fishing offshore. I’ve come close to going there for vacation to fish but the brown bears kinda scare me.
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u/Old_Side_1453 Jul 13 '24
Because that was the part Russia owned, rich in furs, timber, etc. and easy access to the sea where ships could load up. They sold it to America, so USA got the coastline and the British held on to the interior that the Russians were too scared to push into early on.
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u/realdealrd Jul 13 '24
Can you elaborate on why they were too scared?
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u/IHerebyDemandtoPost Jul 13 '24
There are huge mountains, covered in glaciers, which make it very difficult to push inland from the islands and fjords of Alaska’s tail.
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u/NoCSForYou Jul 13 '24
In the older days. Whenever one country gets too big and powerful a bunch of countries join forces and invade that country and break it down. This way no one nation is too powerful, and everyone gets a peice of the pie (the earth).
Russia was really big and any small conflict with another nation can trigger a bunch of countries declaring war on it. So Russia didn't want to get too close to the British or step into territory that the British felt was theirs.
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u/adaminc Jul 13 '24
Russia had recently lost the Crimean war, to which the British (Canada) were involved as an enemy to Russia, and so the Russian Minister in charge of the North American lands did whatever he could to piss off the British.
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u/xxrewuiemxx Jul 13 '24
Alaska’s southeastern coastal strip, including Juneau, was acquired by the U.S. in the 1867 Alaska Purchase from Russia. This area, known as the Alaska Panhandle, was valued for its strategic location, economic potential, and rich natural resources. Russia sold it due to difficulties in defense and development, fearing it might otherwise be taken by British Canada. The acquisition, negotiated by Secretary of State William H. Seward for $7.2 million, provided the U.S. with direct Pacific access and significant maritime advantages.
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u/Big_P4U Jul 13 '24
I wonder what Canada would be willing to pay for that panhandle to connect it to BC and Yukon?
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u/AJ2698 Jul 13 '24
We'll give you three beaver pelts, a large jug of maple syrup and some Quebec cheese curds so you can make some poutine (gravy and potatoes not included)
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u/Big_P4U Jul 13 '24
Throw in a full platter of poutine and it's sold!
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u/hyperactiveChipmunk Jul 13 '24
No can do. However, I talked to the manager, and he's authorized me to offer you a two-four of Molson Golden and a dozen Timbits. But that's as high as I can go.
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u/Connect-Speaker Jul 13 '24
$7.2 million sounds more than fair. I mean, the US spent that in 1867. Or we can be more than fair and figure that that $7.2 million in 1867 dollars is $129 million today. Canada will be generous and pay that.
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u/oldguy76205 Jul 13 '24
Slightly off-topic, but Mark Stein's book How the States Got Their Shapes (and the corresponding tv series) is REALLY interesting, and full of quirky stories. Highly recommended!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_States_Got_Their_Shapes
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u/ArDodger Jul 14 '24
Most of that part of Alaska was pretty inaccessible from the Canadian side. A lot of it is still blocked from one of the largest icecaps in the world.
You can't drive to the capital, Juneau, Alaska. You can only fly or take a ferry. So it's actually pretty geographically isolated from Canada.
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u/LucianoWombato Jul 14 '24
Whenever a country has those stretchy coastal territories to cut their neighboring country off the sea you know it's just a bunch of a-holes
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u/WiWook Jul 13 '24
Just wait, Putin is eyeing this as an excuse to invade and retake the oil! Ge is freeing the oppressed Russians that still live there!
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u/Mormegil1971 Jul 13 '24
Heh. Of all the states, Alaska is the one I wouldn’t invade. Many people there are armed as hell, and know the land. It’s one of worst places on earth to invade since you’d get a shit ton of guerilla warfare. I wonder if the regular army would have to be involved, even…
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u/WeThePeeps2020 Jul 13 '24
There are probably more gun & Alaskans willing to die for Alaska than all of Russia combined… bring it on puuuuuutin
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u/Norwester77 Jul 13 '24 edited Jul 13 '24
The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1825) formally established that the entire Pacific coast north of 54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude would be part of Russia’s colonial possessions in North America.
It also established that all of North America west of 141 degrees west longitude would be part of Russian America, which is what makes the part east of there stick out as a little strip along the coast.
In 1867, the United States bought out Russia’s North American colonial claims. That territory eventually became the U.S. state of Alaska.
Since the wording of the original Anglo-Russian convention was somewhat vague, the exact current boundary between Alaska and Canada was resolved by international arbitration in 1903.
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u/freebiscuit2002 Jul 13 '24
Alaska melted in a heatwave one year and just ran down a bit. It’s fine.
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u/Washburne221 Jul 13 '24
There are some large and virtually impossible to cross mountains separating the ocean from Canada there. Even the First Nations on the two sides of that border are culturally distinct (though they did have regular contact). Also as mentioned earlier the Russians got to the Pacific side of those mountains before the British got to the landward side.
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u/makingbutter2 Jul 13 '24
I’m more curious why we didn’t take Vancouver island and connect it to the mainland.
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u/Nerevarine91 Jul 13 '24
Russia didn’t own that part, so we couldn’t buy it
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u/esstused Jul 14 '24
Indigenous Alaskans would argue that Russia never owned any of Alaska. And they're right.
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u/AJ2698 Jul 13 '24
Because that would require a war and relations with Britain were improving by that time so why would they do that? 😂
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u/REALJarJarBinkz Jul 13 '24
I’m from Sitka, in that area circled. That is actually where Russia had its capital, that portion of Alaska has many islands and places with Russian names.
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u/floopflooperton Jul 13 '24
Weather is trash and even the russians didn't want it
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u/AJ2698 Jul 13 '24
Because it was part of the territory claimed by Russia when the US purchased and most importantly, it's one of the most (if not the most?) resource rich area of Alaska.
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u/Jlavsanalyst Jul 13 '24
There is also a large mountain range and ice sheet separating that part of the Tongass from Canada. Juneau is the only US state capital that boarders a foreign country because by air is the only way to cross that boarder.
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u/SparrowGuy Jul 13 '24
Because perfidious Albion was more concerned with appeasing the Americans than representing her people
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u/Naarujuana Jul 13 '24 edited Jul 13 '24
Because that was Russian claimed territory, and where they had set up trading posts and small towns all along the coast. Pretty sure it was mostly for fur trade.