THE ALASKAN EXPERIENCE: Alaska simply cannot be captured in one single image or moment. The journey north is a nonstop odyssey of glorious landscapes, majestic wildlife and exploration of some of the most remarkable points on the planet. And with Holland America as your guide, you can count on seeing nothing but the best this amazing land has to offer.

Holland America is the leader in Alaska cruises and tours with fabulous glacier cruising, great wildlife-viewing opportunities, and fascinating native culture that add up to the #1 wilderness experience in Alaska. And there’s no better way to experience it than aboard a ship. You can slip through narrow passages and get right up close to the whales, glaciers, and all the other natural wonders we encounter. We can take you to rarely seen glacial wonderlands.

HISTORY: Dreamers, trailblazers, and gamblers have shaped Alaska’s offbeat history. The first Alaskans migrated from Asia some 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. They arrived during an ice age that lowered sea level, revealing a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. Today’s Native Alaskans can be traced to those first settlers of the harsh wilderness.

The 1700s brought Alaska’s first fur boom. Russians dominated the trade, though Spain, France, and England also had a hand in the business and a foot in the state’s southern panhandle. But by the 1860s, Russia was unable to manage its territories and was ready to sell Alaska to the U.S. The American public was outraged by Secretary of State William Seward’s $7.2 million purchase of the land. But thirty years later, the Klondike Gold Rush was on, and prospectors were running to “Seward’s Ice Box” after the promise of quick riches.

In the 20th century, oil has been the Alaskan boon. Petroleum engineers long knew about the oil on Alaska’s north slope, but transportation costs were prohibitively high. Then, on July 28, 1977, the first barrel of crude oil came down the trans-Alaska pipeline at Valdez. Salaries and prices in the state shot up overnight.

Alaskans rode out their good fortune until the 1980s, when world oil prices dropped and the biggest oil spill in U.S. history occurred. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound, contaminating 1,567 miles of shoreline and killing between 300,000 and 650,000 birds.

Today, Alaskans still have the nation’s highest per-capita income, though it is tempered by the high cost of living. Most current residents are actually transplants. Roughly only 30 percent of the population are native-born, and 25 percent have moved there in the last five years. Most of these new residents, often mobile youths from America’s West Coast, came to Alaska to work and enjoy the best of outdoor living.

ALASKA STATS:
2 times the size of Texas
29 volcanoes
33,000 miles of coastline
1,400 miles North to South
2,700 miles East to West
Over 1/2 the world’s Glaciers
55 miles east of Russia
3 million lakes
The only state to have coastlines on three different seas: Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea