for your presence. god blessretary said, you all. [applause] >> next, an american history t.v. exclusive. cities tour visits alaska to learn more about its unique life.y and literary for seven years now, we've traveled to u.s. cities, tonging the historic sites our viewers. watch more of our visits at c-span.org/cities tour. splashing]

[bells tolling] specialme to a presentation after our c-span cities tour, as we take you to alaska. known as the last frontier. it's the largest state in the u.s. and 60% of its over 663 square land administered as part of the national park system. of only population 740,000. the united states purchased in 1867.om russia and admitted it as the 49th 1959.in with the help of our gsi cable hours,s, in the next two fairbankst juneau, and anchorage to learn about the history and culture of the the alaskanning with native heritage center, where we learn about alaska's various native cultures.

♪[singing] [speaking foreign language] >> welcome. we are the alaska native heritage center. and here at the alaska native youth,e center, we teach anywhere from preschool through alaskanool, about native cultures. we also have guests that come from all over the world, and we see all of our 11 indigenous cultural groups. some are classified as eskimos, some as indians. these words come from our people, so i'll help you understand who we are. who are classified as eskimos, it would be northwest part of alaska.

my people would be siberian, which is west of nome. we haveouthwest alaska, native peoples classified as eskimos. classified,ho are the alaskanes from peninsula. the people classified as indians the 11 indigenous groups. and we have several groups. those are the people who are classified as indians. take you around the lake. i'm going to take you to six nativeonal homes of the people of alaska. and i'll be teaching you about the different items that we have about each of the cultures in each of the houses. home.s our winter the people are located in the also in part of alaska,

this area, south central alaska. this is the only house here on is after contact, meaning when the russian explorers arrived, they taught the people how to build their log cabins like this. flattionally, they had a rooftop. the russians taught them how to do the a-frame. instead of their beams being horizontal, they were diverted thebout six feet into ground, so they had problems with the wood rotting. makeey taught them how to the beams horizontal like you see here. there would be one window facing rises fromse the sun the east, and the window would not be as large as you see here. the window would only be about the quarter size of what you see here, and the reason being is don't want especially bears to crawl into your home. that's why they made the windows small. would apply some kind of animal membrane over the window. hit the material, the whole room would light up. that's what they used. kind of like an alarm clock.

that would be the window. the only entrance was through kitchen. this would be the only entrance. and the entrance was only about four logs high, reason being is it serves two different purposes. the heat inside the home. and two is to keep the large an house.ut of the the bark is still very valuable. birch barke a lot of for many different things. as you can see, we have many basket thatyles of are made out of birch bark. it would be -- i was taught by an elder that you have to gather the birch bark so you don't hurt the tree. that he's rituals taught me to do, and that was to meditate and pray before we gather, because our people believe that you have to do it with good intentions. this is very valuable to the people. utilize it for many

different things besides eating. of the tell the age moose by the number of paints it has on its antlers. was about 16, maybe 17 years old. as you see here, hanging against purse that's made out of moose hide. veryhe people have beautiful floral designs on their clothing, their purses, their footwear, and so each of ownfamilies have their design. and over here, hanging, we have different animal hides. we have a piece of river otter here. we have a beaver that they would for part of their clothing. untanned moosee hide. and we have a caribou hide here. the caribou hides would be put over the beams over our heads, down -- furnacing fur facing down, and the reason

they do that, fur is hollow on the inside and it would trap the heat in the fur. 11 differenteak languages, 22 different die dialects. related to the navajos, apaches. expand into canada and parts of the lower 48. so this is the winter home. go to the going to house here. in this home would be found southwestern part of alaska. and as you see over here, we have the big house, which is a then then's house, small per houses are -- the forler houses would be family homes. above -- itld be might be about two, maybe five times larger than what you see depending on the size of

the village. singlewe are inside the man's house. a lot of people come to alaska with an idea of eskimos still living in igloos. maded not live in igloos out of ice and snow blocks. this is our winter home. our winter homes would be subterranean. it represents ground level. how far into the ground this house traditionally .ould have been it's a very large entrance. you'd have all kinds of animals house.into this so our entrances were small. we had to crawl on our hands and get in and out of the house. in the winter time, we close hides.f with animal this became your winter entrance and underground tunnel. of like be shaped kind a u. and you pop outside and, again, you had to crawl on your hands and knees. and the reason why we had an underground tunnel is because we

use this as a cold air trap, because cold air seeps. have several different items here inside the house. have an oil lamp. madeeal oil lamp would be out of clay from earth. and we also used lava rocks. and one person's job, all day was to the family, maintain the seal oil lamp so that they don't burn out or fire in the house. so this is a very small one. but the ones that we used a lot bigger were than what you see here. we did put them in the corners house, and you'd burn the seal oil to use for light and heat. and then above our heads, we trap, which is latched together. we have two pieces of fence. would put the fence alongside of this. we would put this in the rivers and the creeks in the winter

time to catch black fish, which small.y and it would guide the fish into the trap. small hole.e's a if a whole bunch of fish were caught in the trap, it would cone. that that's how they would catch their fish. we have some sealskins here. we have a sealskin here. we used this for clothing, whether it be for our pants, our boots, our hats, mittens. for lots of other different things. we made them into backpacks. don'tof people who understand our native cultures tend to question us about why we whales. seals and this is the way earth was made by the creator. choosean race did not the animals for themselves. they were chosen for us. up, the creator provided my people with seals, reindeer, all kinds of

sea birds, fish and whales. the first human in a kayak. kayak came from us. a hunter would use his body make the frame of his kayak. isyou can see, the frame actually latched together. and when you latch it together in the roughl bering sea, it gives it room to frame doesn't break. traditionally, we would cover this kayak with a sealskin. this was used as a mode of transportation by the hunters. they couldn't pronounce that itd, so in english they call kayak. the idea of the kayak came from the people of the arctic region. came from us. the hunter put the first human in a kayak. the kayak washed up on the beach. curious.ls were

they pulled in the kayak, and inside they saw a creature sleeping. and the caribou said, look at this creature. he's not going to survive. going to freeze to death. he doesn't have fur like us. says, heolar bear can't hunt like us. us,oesn't have claws like teeth like us. he certainly isn't going to make it. we're going to call him human. we must sacrifice ourselves to this human, because without us, survive, asable to long as he treats us with respect. we are approaching the people's house. language, this is the otherf my people and also people. and right here, we have a tunnel go. we are going to this tunnel is closer to a traditional entrance, but, is a very large one. so you would have problems with into thiss coming

house. again, that's why we had to make small, so that large animals don't come into your house. throughe going to go the tunnel here. step in the entrance, please. we are now inside the home of also the saint lawrence island or the siberian people. this house, in my language, we it... [speaking foreign language] >> this is traditionally our winter home, just like that last from.we just came if you look at it again, the lower view, it shows you that subterranean. and the walls would not be plain like you see here. we used natural earth for insulation. and in the state of alaska, we have 11 whaling communities. legally allowed to hunt for whales. the international whaling us thesen gives

rights. so depending on the size of our villages, they do give us quotas. for last year and this year, ofy gave my people a quota eight per year. we have two different whale hunting seasons, the springtime also the fall whale hunting. goggles.ve snow i like to say that these are the first shades. huntersre used by the to prevent snow blindness, so they'd use these in the winter time. they would be made out of driftwood or sometimes animal bones or ivory, comes from the tusk of a walrus. and then we have a piece of over here against the wall, which was actually donated who hadf my sons, successfully hunted 10 whales in his lifetime. 400 pieces to about inside a bullhead whale's mouth, adult. and they might vary in size from foot longrom about a

and theiro 16 feet hair, which is used like a filter, this is how it catches food. so traditionally, it would be used for lots of different snares orcluding sleds. my people would make these into so in the winter time, my dad would be pulling the sled, and if he successfully hunted a seal, he would be pieceg the seal on the here. a whale hunter's knife. so when you butcher a whale, you use this handle right here. you butcher the whale together, using this long handle. now we are approaching this house, and this house is called -- [speaking foreign language] >> and the word alaska came from way theyple, and the

traditionally pronounced is word is alaska. and the translation is where the sea brings us back. wherehere was a bridge russia and alaska were connected. the sea came and broke it apart. the word alaska comes from. it doesn't necessarily mean the the sea brings us back. so in traditional times, when the people built their houses completely underground, because we have the cold air from the air from theot pacific ocean, when it meets. itn cold air meets hot air, creates hurricane-force winds. aleutian islands were very windy. that's why people built their completely underground. traditionally they used this to get in and out of the house. you would actually have an entire village living in this house together. the biggest house they found was an island, and the house was almost the size of a football field. 60 feet wide.ut

and each of the families would these.y have it was woven together using grass. that's what they used for privacy, along the walls. and at end of the house would be the chief and his family. is the house. so the kayaks, they don't call them kayaks in their language. they call them... language]foreign >> it's called kayak. and again, just like that last saw, it'sast one we they wouldether, and use sea lions to cover their kayaks. war ii, therld people were evacuated to southeast alaska. 1941. so when the people were southeast alaska, hundreds and hundreds of their famine,ied of starvation and diseases, because military just dropped

them off in southeast alaska. 1945-46, the people were told that they could go back to their vims on the -- villages on the aleutian islands. to their went back villages on the outer aleutian islands, their homes were destroyed. some of their idols were stolen. the u.s. government told them that they could not build notols, because they did have homes. so they had to relocate again. lot of history that's not taught about the native people of alaska that we teach here. we are approaching the home of the people of southeast as the...wn [speaking foreign language] >> these people actually originated from british columbia. they came to alaska in 1887, named william duncan,

for religious freedom. when they came to alaska, the people gave them the island as a gift. behind me, we have a totem poll world-renowned artist named nathan jackson. totem pole is called the box of wisdom. will notice that the chief has three rings around his head, he has -- a pot for sai ceremonial purposes. stick,lding a talking meaning nobody is allowed to speak except for him. and when he's done speaking, he stick to the next person. and then right under the uncle is his nephew. we are a society, taught and trained by our aunts and uncles. here is a box of wisdom, all the wisdom he learned from his uncle. right below the box of wisdom, we have the raven on the side.and

and we have the eagle on the right-hand side. thedown below the raven and eagle are the children of eagle and raven. long housewe have a or a clan house. and then the entrance that you theyere, traditionally would carve some kind of clan design on the entrance here so that people know what clan this house belongs to. so welcome to the long house, the home of the people of southeast alaska. so what you're smelling in here cedar.ally the planks on the walls are red cedar. that there notice are spaces in between the planks. they serve two different purposes. one, it was used for two, becauseand southeast alaska is part of the rain forest. water is going to get absorbed by the wood. so it needs room to expand. then we have four house posts that were carved by the four

main culture groups of alaska. and respect among the native people is a huge thing. a very big thing. this one over here was carved by brothers. this one is called "respect for family." eyebrows,ee above the the hummingbirds, which represents the children. then we have the eagle and raven tongues, because the eagle and raven in southeast alaska are love birds. we have aver here, post. this one is respect for self. reminds me of the things that my grandmother taught me. here, ite the piercing is part of some of the alaskan have acultures to piercing here. so i learned from one of my friends that when you have a jewelry here, if you talk too much, your mouth gets sore. that piece of jewelry teaches you to think before you speak. here is respect for culture.

think about respect for culture, i think about how is the most diversity in the whole nation. like to ask people why i should respect their culture should respect mine, because -- and my reason behind that is because the human race lived together in such places as villages, towns and cities, so it's very important for us to respect each other, together forved survival purposes. post, ishere, the last this post. this one is "respect for environment." you'll notice the eyebrows of the bird, respect the sky. the drum isl notice the wolf, respect the land. and down on the bottom is the ocean.whale, respect the so that's what these posts are -- why these posts are in here. so what we hope for people to take away from the alaskan heritage center is that

they have a better understanding of our alaskan native culture traditions.r it's very important to honor our traditions and teach our traditions, because knowledge has to be passed on to generations. if we don't pass on knowledge, then it gets lost forever. we want to make sure that our knowledge is being passed on, traditions are being passed on, because the next theyation will come in and take over. so we want to make sure it's being passed down. ]drumming nsmed [applause] a sixali national park is million acre preserve located in interior alaska. knownome to denali, also as mount mckinley, which at 20,310 feet, is north america's highest peak. special we continue our

look at alaska with a visit to the anchorage museum to learn an earthen formation only found in the arctic. [birds singing] by ais is an installation seattle based artist called murmur. of ana representation phenomenon.gical it's a formation of frozen sies creates these mounds along the tundra. feetn be as much as 150 tall and sometimes almost as far as a mile wide. they're found throughout the arctic, whether it be siberia or the alaska and canadian arctic. of themwell over 3,000 that are documented. some are quite small, some are quite large. process're always in a

of building up or eventually pockmarking the ground. these are created when ice or water, seeps into the ground. usually the remnants of a shallow lake. and then as that water then starts to freeze and ball up, it to expand, as ice expands, and then that creates ice core center and an earthen mound on top of it. so the life cycle starts with a lake.w then the water seeps into the ground, and then starts to ma frost.t of the per these things occur in places where perma frost, that is, year-round subterranean ice exist. then they grow and grow. other factors continue to add water to them. groundwater,to the that becomes part of the permafrost. eventually they reach their end

point, whether there's either no more land to cover over the top you can split open and see into the ice core of them, or because they're in a space whetherhanging climate, that's, you know, the end of an a modern reason for climate changing. then the ice will then melt and structure will collapse. throughout the is no, as permafrost longer being permafrost, they're melting to the changing climates where it normally would not melt, it's starting to melt. methane thatsing has been trapped for millennia. construct outones of -- not constructed out of ice but of methane gas bubbles up and creating smaller versions that are similar in some ways. those eventually, if they gather enough gas, willing eventually

pop -- will eventually pop or explode. it's something that we're seeing more and more of and we're learning more and more about it. this installation is the work of artist out of seattle, washington. he's done a number of with us, most of them having to do with the arctic. three years ago, he did a residency in the north and learned and experienced his first one and became fascinated by them. he has created a representation pingo, this one called murmur, essentially the size of modeled after one specific pingo that he researched. his workshop.n and so it uses repurposed alaskan yellow cedar. and then a steel frame with an so it actually does move to simulate the life cycle pingo itself. coupled with that is an augmented reality piece that

give people the experience of what the terrain looked like in the area of a pingo. marshes, the the mosquitos. you can actually walk into it when you're wearing the virtual reality lenses. can kind of peer your way into the center of it. visitors, many of which won't come within 500 itself, anpingo opportunity to get an idea of what this geological formation like. here we're using augmented rate. see -- augmented reality. you will see what's actually in the room and then you'll see things layered on top of it. as you put on the goggles, but thene the pingo, you'll see puddles, swarms of low-lyingome of the flora of the tundra as well, you in this part of the world, there are no large trees. so you get to walk along in a different environment. just kind of inlaid

where you can still see the museum but you can see that as it. of and that really, i think, kind theontextualizes what arctic is like and what the tundra is like, for people that fart be able to get that north. i think for our visitors, one, to be able to experience the way isin some meaningful really exciting for us. to be able to use an emerging augmented like reality to sort of enhance that experience, is also really us.resting for also, you know, pingos are, you sort of a barometer in some very real ways of our change that we're experiencing here, that as our the arctic, in which is warming at twice the rate of climates around the world, as it continues to grow, then we're starting to see these pingos, their ice core melting and collapsing at a rate that we had not seen before. that, for some

people, it's a really direct of what our changing people, think for some it's a really direct sign of what our changing climate is to look like. we have other climate issues here in alaska. e have more coastline than the rest of the united states put together and we're starting to see coastal erosion throughout of alaska. there are islands in alaska made up of permanent ma profit as that climate warms these island are literally melting into the sea. have come ears that on to those lands are having to find more permanent rock from and to hunt live on. he birds that have used those island for mel lena for nesting re having to find alternate locations. all the forces that are part of the suite of things you can planet rom a warming

you're starting to see how interconnected these elements are so we would like to use this as part of a conversation so understand how the warming ce ways global environments. the united states purchased 1867 for om russia in two cents per acre. about was passed allowing alaska to become the 49th state. one ofup, we learn about the longest serving members of ted stevens. mr. president, alaska is not a and is no longer an impoverished territory. it's a great state and essential our nation's energy security and national defense. role in i've had a this transformation, working to its alaska achieve

potential has been and will continue to be my life's work. ted stevens was alaska's senior senator for over 40 years. stevens was involved in some of the seminole legislative initiatives that helped to shape the state of alaska starting with alaska statehood. on through the alaskan settlement act, the and ries conservation management act. the transalaska pipeline act, we'll erous others that talk about today. the ted stevens foundation was a way to horn1 as or and recognize the senator's career and public service and to apply his legacy throughout education. the foundation is working on and curating the senator's papers which show over in publicf his career service. work,chivists are hard at at 4,800 boxes, one of the largest congressional amassed in the

united states. stevens was born november 18, in indiana. he was raised in the early years grandparents and then in his later teenage years moved to raised by his was aunt and uncle. while in california he developed surfe for surfing, and his board was figured prominently in senate office throughout his career. after graduation senator see ens attended college in oregon for a semester but his dream was o be a member of the armed services and he really wanted to be a pilot. but when he went to take the eye he failed. so he always tells the story about how he went back, did some research, did a bunch of eye exercises, went back and took passed.m and as a pilot in the army air corps senator stevens flew support for the flying tigers in the china-india burma theater ii.ing world war

the senator's journey to alaska turns.ome after military service he attended harvard law school on the g.i. bill. graduating from law school he moved to d.c. and began working at a law firm where he an alaskaka-based client and it was his first tie to alaska. shortly thereafter, the senator received a job offer to be a and attorney in fairbanks moved his young family to alaska job.took that from there, he was appointed to serve as an assistant to seton at the department of interior in the eisenhower administration. was to re, the big goal get alaska statehood. so one of the things i wanted to today, you can see that was signed, with the original pen used to act. the alaska statehood it says dear ted i'm happy to send you enclosed with this used by e of the pens

the president on january 3, 1959 in signing the proclamation admission of the alaska to the union as the 49th state. his pen is sent to you in recognition of the important part you played in this historic achievement. alaska statehood was an issue that helped define senator stevens' career and he became known as mr. alaska for his trong advocacy of alaska statehood, and during that time, he gained an appreciation of the importance of bringing together diverse groups in order to ffectuate a change that they wanted to make and in this case, it was trying to convince of congress, states that were already part of the union, statehood was beneficial to the united states, nd in doing so, he brought together journalists and people from outside the normal realm to help sell that message to the american people and to congress. in the alaska

state legislature as a representative governor wally -- appointed senator stevens to the u.s. senate senate upon the bob bartlett.or when he was appointed one thing that was settled was settling the boriginal land claims of natives of the state. prior to that, oil had been discovered on the north slope established ion under state hood of who owned land in alaska had never been settled. the discovery of that oil was hreatened because we couldn't access it. so the senator calls his time what became the alaskan native claim system fire. his trial by and it was another instance of ow senator stevens used variation and bipartisanship, which is a theme that you can career.oughout his he worked to bring together alaskan natives and others to

resolve these claims. senator stevens realized what a system the reservation in the lower 48 was, and he wanted to create something where natives had control of their destiny. cultural eserve their traditions, but also to have an economic base from which they perpetuate those cultural per ought to. so one of the things i wanted to show you today is that act passed in 1971, and here the note that the senator received. dear ted the president asked hat i deliver the enclosed pen which was the pen used to sign the alaskan native claims act. issues for the holiday season. o the act established 13 regional corporations, gave them 40 million acres of land and a billion dollars from which it gave the alaskan natives control over their land resources.

upon passage of the native senator stem act, the then turned his attention on how we get energy resources from the alaska to the rest of the united states. o the next big item on the legislative agenda was authorizing the transalaskan and here we see the nixon president richard signing the act which established the transalaska cap system, and there is an interesting story behind this. stevens and senator gravelle introduced an amendment which would block any kind of legal challenge to the pipeline system, and they losing the vote and senator stevens on the floor gave a very impassioned statement which actually changed the mind of a to a senator, which led tie in the vote which vice had to t sprio agnew

break the tie. one the transalaskan pipeline act was passed, construction immediately gan on pipeline and that pipeline system actually transformed the state of alaska. largest me, it was the privately financed energy it's still a marvel of innovation today. would allow foreign fishing only after it had been determined that american harvest a annot a maximum yield which will not deplete the species and even then they would have to the ter, that is, foreigners, would have to register and pay a fee to fish monitored.be closely in fact, on the high seas, determination of economic by ocation would be made hose nations now fishing for species such as salmon. >> the next problem he tackled the problem of overfishing in u.s. waters. in the 1970s there, were foreign

were fishing right off the coast of alaska and decimating our fisheries population. at the time, senator stevens served on the commerce committee with senator from the state of washington. e was a democrat and senator stevens obviously was a senator mag saw something in senator stevens and they decided to work together to try and resolve the issues. on the gone international stage to try and create an international that, ion to deal with but that was taking quite a long time. they developed an innovative program which then game the stevens concentration and management act and here we byually have the pen signing president jerry ford, of theedging the passage fishery and conservation management act. which was layered renamed the act.ns it extended u.s. jurisdiction to miles off the coast of the

united states. that way we could regulate fisheries. also created 23ish rest management councils which help population of the stocks to make sure that our fisheries remained healthy for generations of americans. he senator was a lifelong advocate of healthy living. when he was in high school, he as actually a lifeguard in manhattan beach. and that kind of physical in vity translated later on life. the senator's desire to ensure the everyone had access to opportunities that sports provides led him not only to be title 9, but r of lso to be the lead sponsor on amateur sports act. here's an example of the pen by president jimmy carter which established the amateur of 1978, and what that did is it modernized the olympic committee and gave

oth the olympic committee and athletes a financial basis for and excel.cceed after the amateur sports act passed senator stevens recognized that there is a need ensure that people of all abilities were able to sports and have that support, so he sponsored an which nt to the act included para-olympians and special olympians as part of the u.s. olympic program. here's a photo that we have in archive of the special olympian of the year in 2000. enator stevens grew up with a cousin who experienced a disability and he carried that wanted ut his life and to make sure that people like his cousin had the opportunities to succeed like everyone else does. the archives are incredibly a ortant because they tell story of senator stevens' approach to public service and how he solved issues. things that senator

stevens was known for was his reach across party lines to effectuate change. quote is to 4e8 with politics, do what's right or alaska in the nation and that's reflected here in the archive. wie pulled some representations letters.ent ere's one, when they were working on the alaska land onservation act, which was detecting wilderness areas, in alaska he was working ith his counterpart in the house. dear ted, you're a good man, i owe you an apology for not your note a couple of weeks ago. it's been on ply desk and i meant to call. wanted to sit down and work out a land compromise but it got into a channel where i must work nd go through the whole marks-up process. it spect we'll be working

out in conference stage. -- let's keep in touch. mo. enator stevens loved to bring people to alaska. i think alaska such a vast state. texas, mes the size of our rural communities are only accessible by air or boat and because of have running t water, et cetera. so he thought it was important to bring senators and alaska.ntatives to here's actually a photo of enator stevens in 1969 with senator ted kennedy. they are in pilot station, alaska. it was 1969, there is no email, phone service as were telegrams, so able to archivist was track down the daughter of the postmaster who is in the photo story behind e this photograph. and the daughter relayed that at idea that hey had no

someone was coming to pilot big on and they saw two military aircraft approaching. and everyone in the town thought attacking viets were them. until the planes landed and obviously senator stevens and kennedy got off the plane. so that's root thing that we do s to try and track down the stories behind the photographs o give a more complete view of alaska's history and the senator's role in that. is, ome is where the heart mr. president. if that's so, i have two homes. this right here in chamber, and the other is my beloved state of alaska. leave one to return to the other. >> senator stevens left the in january of 2009, and lost him in a y 2010. crash on august 9, the reaction at the time was disbelief. senator stevens had kind of been larger than life figure.

he was the alaskan of the century. as uncle erred to him ted because he was so from, you know, the smallest person with an issue ith their social security to corporations in alaska. they could always speak to senator stevens directly about issues. so his loss was deeply felt throughout the state. > looking around the state of alaska, you can see the tangible evidence of the things that he worked on. the fisheries, there is il and gas, there are hospitals, and clinics, there is aviation and the airports. i think that senator stevens' lasting legacy is in whose lives he touched and one thing here at the foundation that we're doing we see those people as a legacy in action. they are continuing the work began to enator improve not only individuals but heir communities and the state

and our country. so i think his legacy is in continuing the good work of the senator. pole, alaska, is located 14 miles southeast of fairbanks. here the population of about 2,000 people celebrate christmas largest d with its attraction being the house where santa claus lives. visit ladd air force role in earn about its world war ii. >> this airfield probably had as in to do with any facility the army with winning world war shot was t a single ever fired from here. the military value of alaska was

noted clear back in 1905, when mitchell, an ly aviator of some fame who the lly grew up to be commander of the army air corps, to put in a aska from -- to valdez the first noted military interest in alaska. s a result of that stationing, billy mitchell later on in in his career test in front of strategic at the enormous.alaska was in fact, he said, and he's still whoever this day, if you look ka -- at it on a globe, you will see hat a straight line between,

say, san francisco and tokyo close to the aleutian islands and that's why the were interested in controlling them in world war ii. o today it still has the strategic value it always had. forces stationed here in alaska far et to europe or the east, at least a day faster than in thefrom anywhere else world. construction on the airfield of 1939 when a representative arrived if assistants.th 13 hey actually began building hanger one to my rear in october 1939. they poured the first 5,000 feet now an 8,500 foot runway he purpose of the original facility was to house a cold test detachment whose

sole mission was to test irplanes in the cold environment of the sub arctic in fairbanks, in order to learn how to operate in the cold environment. of note, we've all seen pictures of waste gunners in the b-17s outng world war ii shooting of both sides of the airplane window, and they were heavily dressed. what a lot of people don't know electricallyrm was heated and that heating system was developed right here at ladd army airfield. this is an attractive place to do cold weather testing, because gets cold here. we're sitting out here in 0-degree temperatures on june 21. solstice, by the way, but six be hs from now, we won't sitting out here. feet will be two to three of snow all over the installation. 20 temperature will be 10 to

degrees fahrenheit below zero ut it does get to sometimes to 50 and 60 degrees below zero and stopst temperature rubber being pliable and fluids stop eing fluid so it takes special materials and special operating in edures in order to work the cold environment like this. [blast noise] of pearl he bombing harbor actually began, the u.s. in world war ii, airfieldt on ladd army wasn't until later. to 1943, september of 1943 september of 1945, this was the for almost 8,000 airplanes, and right here, they were transferred to the russians. the russian air force, and russian pilots took the from here to the

russian eastern front. 7,929 airplanes. per month. the airplanes were brought up here by u.s. pilots. they were flown to the eastern by russian pilots. there was a detachment of 350 soldiers in the hanger one behind me, and they did a ot of things to prepare those airplanes for shipment to the front. primarily they took up the airplanes and painted a red star on it so it would stop being an american and become a russian airplane. those people that brought the here were all part of the air transport command and when they got here they got on a plane and they were taken right back to montana to because at airplanes 250 to 300 airplanes per month, flow ad to keep that

going. so when they got here, they were russians.er to the them with s serviced cold winter oil and fluids. they tested them to make sure and then air worthy they left. how that helped them in world ar ii, almost 8,000 airplanes were used by the russians to put eastern air pressure on the nazr forces and relieve some of the pressure of the u.s. and its llies approaching from the west. he program was called were a lot and there of, millions and millions of other rolling stock and kinds of materials as well as airplanes that were given by the its allies in europe and

russia. in i personally think it was a misnomer. of that equipment ever came back, and nobody ever paid us for it. the value on that equipment would be, even in 1940 dollars, and billions. in outcome was, victory world war ii. during the 1950s, when the cold up, the air force one b t on alert with b-52 and listen 36 airplanes. hey went on strategic nuclear alert. he runway at ladd is 8,575 feet. it can't be any longer because the chino river is off the end end of the runway. 1961, the air f to the ft ladd and went 26-mile weather alternate base, the runway tonded

sending et, and began nuclear alert with b-52s and b-36s. in this interview i never refer to the russians as our friends. allies.e our the it is ironic in 1945, russians left here and, less than five years later we were nuclear alert against a primary soviet threat. army january of 1961, ladd air field became wainwright army airfield and it remains airfield from september of 1 to 2006. in 2006, the airfield manager the first job he asked me to do was to get the base renamed ladd army airfield. of reasons couple

to do that. first of all, this was the only anywhere in the rmy where the airfield had the same name as the garrison. umber two, there is already a alaska.ht airfield in it's north of the bricks range, arctic ocean, and there was confusion by aviators about which wainwright to land on. and one of the big reasons was, the people of fairbanks never ladd field.ing it > fairbanks is located in alaska's interior and is two hours north of mount mckinley. nearly opulation of 33,000, it's the state's second metropolitan area. fairbanks is a military 4ub with fort wayne wright located within

city limits. it's also known for its rich gold deposits, which led to a turn of the the 20th century. next, we continue our special at alaska with a visit to gold dredge eight to learn about the gold mining history in fairbanks. >> you have to make a flurry, grainy on the bottom. grinding, it's tough to find gold. be bigger stones can removed. keeping it soupy keeps the gold down. to be picked ed off because the same amount of water that will move one of bigger stones might just push your gold out. we do have a little different end. right at the you're not going to see this trick on the outdoor channel, timers up in the circle district taught me this one. water on one of

side, as on the other. as if it were a marble you roll it around the base. each time it comes around it picks up a little bit of the dirt. under the ll be puddle of dirt. it's like divide and conquer. not threw panning until all that's left in the pan is nice, clean, gold. >> there were gold rushes all over the u.s. a california gold rush. yukon gold rush and alaska gold rush. as soon as word got out, that yellow rock was found in people were coming up here to mine. >> we have a tour operation here basically, we're entertaining people, guests that come up to our statement. e're trying to share the history of gold mining in the fairbanks district. >> back in 19 -- the early 1900sings, like 1906, felix edro was up in this area, approximately 10 miles from

where we're standing right now, was the first discovery in the fairbanks area. gold mining basically put fairbanks on the map. hen felix found the gold it actually created the fairbanks, the little town of fairbanks on the river. mining is huge in this area. still to this day. do here, is we want to show the people how it used to be done. give them a little bit of history, right up to modern day, with a gold you can pan here. [train sound] felix hit on r gold about 20 miles upstream. he had to walk 130 miles back to circle city, nearest recording district to validate the claim. the new s the word of strike got out, johnny come district the circle began to stampede and it was fairbanks falls the

district. the transportation corridor of not only the easiest laces to walk, but oftentimes those stream beds of gravel typical seeping, so a tank, you pitched your tent, you and you o the gravel, shovel up some of the gravel into your gold pan. money inf there is any it. if it shows promise, you want to bit of ve a little production you should construct a slew spot. concentrating device hat allowed the prospector to take a hundred or more shovelfuls of gravel so we could work it through one pan. the more experienced men who deeper, to dig a lot best gold generally found where the gravel meets the bedrock. in the fairbanks district they were in for a big surprise. typically in fairbanks, there is

80 to well over a hundred feet that soil that's permanently frozen year round. quick shift of operations into the wintertimeened a baker crew of men. we brought in a team boiler. -- 10 to 12 w of 150 working. the workings of a drip, i'll turn over to george. pedro would take a 20 acre claim on a creek, register it and would start societying up their equipment. here is what a typical gold mine would have looked like here in fairbanks 1907 and 1915. they would pick what they helped a lucky spot on that 20 acre piece of ground and by eightd dig an eight foot straight down. hey would dig through the top

layer of material, down through he frozen gravel and all the way to bedrock. 300 feet straight down and if they were lucky and they hit bottom of the shaft, if they hit it, they would start a side tunnel off the shaft called a drift. and for that reason, these mines and theled drift mines, men that worked them were called drifters. that shaft ey had open and stable, they would send directly from n the boiler, attached to big hollow plates called steam working nd men underground called the point man, would hammer those points nto the frozen face of the drift and use the steam from the boiler to thaw out the gold gravel. once thawed they would ex-sca late with picks and shovels and wheelbarrows. 260 pounds per load, 12 hours a $a , soviet days a week for plus board. those men moved.

it back to the bottom of the shaft. they would fill up the bucket them there. when the bucket was full, they would signal their engineer up on the surface. the engineer would engage his wrench. would lift al, he the full bucket right up and out of the shaft. the ucket would travel up line, like you see it doing right here, and it would drop of contents into a pile aterial like this, that's called -- it's the gold excavated if bedrock. with sand andd in gravel. n these piles, they were also called the winter dumps bus in the fairbanks mining district all excavation work was done underground in the wintertime so they excavated all winter surface up these on the and what the minors were looking for here was gold. liners would pulled slew boxes into the winter dumps. they would divert water from the directly into the

solutions, and they would spend all summer long while the water running in the creek intoling that dirt by hand his loose box to catch the placer of gold. guys -- the owners of these drift mines were pretty well labor intensive. ready to sell by about 1920. a couple of boys here in hadbanks got the idea, they seen it happen before, they formed their own company called fairbanks exploration. they began to consolidate the claims, they got some east coast investors involved, the timing was everything. 1923 when president hardy came up to drive the the alaskan into railroad, the company was in business. the open water port to the tiny town of of the s on the banks

river. he began to move heavy freight immediatelyr alaska the first thing in the heavy-duty drills, the ability to deliver a cross-section, if you will, of the permafrost, the the n soil, down through gravel, eventually determining gold at r value of the bedrock. then the mining engineers used to determine gs the best methods of mining. overburden permafrost would hydraulic with the method. and proven,ka >> david engineered us what davidson water ditch.

it starts northeast of here, meets the mouth. of ging 180,000 gallons water to the fairbanks district 1967.summer day up until - atwater arrived at elevation. off the point of that ridge, feet down was the terminus of the ditch. eventually 36-inch piping brought that water to the valley floor. otherwise, arriving almost 400 feet above the valley floor. the valley floor in those days a bit higher. 23 you looked out to the right of the terrain, passed that pile to the near horizon that timber, all second and row trees but their roots are embedded in the original valley floor. o we come to a full stop,

you'll be able to see for yourself, before the mining began in the gold stream valley, 80, 90, well over a permafrost. of george will explain how that was taken care of. >> once the exploration company hold their power plant built and supply, the davidson ditch, then they could begin preparation work. it was a two-step process, that went right along with the layers material that were present here in the ground. the top layer, that overburden, again, frozen silt and mud. no gold in it, so all overburden had to be removed from company claims and they removed verburden with these big water cannons that are called hydraulic giants. they were taking water off the ditch into a holding pond. they were dumping out water through a series of pipes and it out the giant at high pressure. workers called pipers would hold they were iant

operating. they would point it straight ahead and they would use that just washure water to away the overburden p. layer by layer, they would blast it away the creeks and let this creeks just carry the overburden away. pipers working these hydraulic giants stripped acres of ground light down to the bare gravelle that i'm standing on. i was standing on this spot right here next to engineer f.e. company he stripped this ground, i would have been standing just about a straight up in the air. that's where the engineer creek originally ran. artificial valley created by washing away all that permafrost to t expose the gravels, but once the exposed, they were still frozen and they needed to e thawed out before dredging and f.e. company thawed gravel cold water points.

the points themselves are just hollow pipes. 3/4-inch pipe in 10 foot screwed easily together as being driven down. the starting point, a bevel edge in it for e hole water outlet. f.e. company would set the points up on the base, hold them stable in the ground, an adjustable driving clamp kept bout waist height and then a 24-pound sliding hammer. and workers called point drivers pick up that hammer and drop it on the clamp and pick it it.nd drop and pick it up. 12 hours day, seven days a week, rain or shine, mosquitoes or not, these guys were being paid per hour in the late 1920s and 1930s. t the same time that the point drivers were doing that hard labor f.e. company was again taking water off of the davidson pitch. forcing it down that pipe and when the water came out the frozen ground he

beneath it, it would bounce back, percolate to the surface, an eight foot cylinder around each individual point so said these pany points up in equal lateral triangles that were spaced so foot cylinders of ground would meet and they would have a thawed piece of ground surface to bedrock. an extreme amount of work preparation, ound it took an average of seven years to go from an untouched piece of round to a ground that was stripped of overburden, that was thawed, and dig eady for a dredge to for a full 200 day season and for eachwas the target dredge every year. >> all right. hat was how they stripped the ground. now we're going to roll up to dredge eight herself. most important thing about all the dredges, the power plant. f.e. e dredges that company brought into the fairbanks district were electrically powered so they in t one power plant

downtown fairbanks, ran the distribution line to each of the dredge camps. at the camp a substation would power as well as another line that would run out to the always floating dredges. all of the buildings you will see today in the dredge eight f.e. x were originally company buildings. none of them were right out in front of the dredge. right where it quit working. all this land in front of the cleared, s bare land, stripped, thawed and readied for fining. inner workings, i'll turn over to a well respected an who did his thesis on this monster gold chip, george. take it away, george. main now standing on the deck at the bow of gold dredge number eight. this is one of eight machines operated by d and the fairbanks exploration 19464. between 1928 and and this machine, herself in 1928, until 1959,

which she stopped on this spot pond e's been on this since that last day of work. the company had a starting point machine based on their test drilling and at that oint, they excavated a big pit all the way down to bedrock. when it was completely ssembled, they opened up the gates to the davidson pitch, it with water, plugged it into their power supply in fairbanks. on august 20, 1928, this machine was ready to start digging. gold dredge is a simple machine that did three things. dredge chewed gold bear gravel, swallowed gold and spit out rock. gravel, ne, chewing up that was done by the big bucket line here, right beside us. down ame this is sticking here is called the ladder. number eight had a 35 foot lad or and that means this machine could put 35 feet own below water level to reach bedrock.

around that ladder in operation, 64, continuous chain of six cubic foot buckets and you can see some of them on the line there. in operation, that continuous hain was like a big chain saw blade that was cutting in reverse, that chain of buckets would move around that digging ladder. each individual bucket would come up from underneath, dig of the pond out front, get gold bearing gravel and it would carry it up the leader, drop it into 2 hopper on the third deck of the dredge and downbucket would come back to get another load. number eight could move 22 speed. per minute at top 7,000 cubic yards of gold bearing gravel in a 20-hour shift. again, all of that gold bearing material elevated, the ed in the hopper and hopper fed down into the trammell screen. cylinder.ell is a big it's 36 feet long. it's got a 6 foot inside diameter. it starts high at the hopper,

slopes down towards the back of perforated and it's with holes along its entire helping, about a quarter inch diameter up top. get bigger as you go back to about 5/8 of an inch. they are banging that material round inside the trammell adding water pumped ther of the pond at high pressure at 9,000 gallons per minute. you take the gold bearing gravel, add water and shake it in the trammell screen. the heavy gold would separate, through the wn holes in the trammell and on to the slew spots. digger than the biggest hole in that trammelle screen would continue downhill. the trammell, ff it would hit a conveyer belt, be levated up behind the machine inside what's called the stacker and it would be spit out into of washed rock. the last pile left by number next to the t here train tracks. now, anything smaller than the again, n the trammell,

would fall through on sluces. eight on each side, they start high at the trammell, slope down toward the outside walls. and those sluces fall into four sluces that go down here and hook up into the tail and back down into the pond. so those there the three stones in gold dredging. gold cket line chewing up bearing dwravl, trammell screen swallowing goal and 13i9ing out rocks. hours a day, 200 days year, 26 years of operation for dredge number eight. be shut down about every 10 to 15 days to pull a clean up and that meant the gold from the dredge. and during that four-hour leanup a special cleanup crew would get up into the dredge, they would go up into the second deck, they would disassemble the gather up letely and

the material, and those are called the concentrates. hey would scoop up those concentrates and load them into lock boxes like this one here it when the books was full, would close the lid, latch it, put a lock on it, it took two box when it p this was full to move it from the dredge to the truck that was waiting outside. all of these boxes are concentrate. oom, --ed to the gold at the f.e. company compound. once there they would open up furnace and pack the concentrates inside. they would then seal the door heat up to 2,300 degrees fahrenheit, and that was ot enough to burn off impurities and melt that gold down into liquid form. molten, they was would open up the door of the theyce, tip it forward and would pour that quick lid gold nto brick molds like this one here. so 700 ounce brick, 58 pounds.

nce the bricks were cool, they would pop them on the table, do some cleanup work and almost today, the y, to us f.e. company would take each ndividual 58 pound brick of laskan gold, they would wrap that brick in brown paper, put a seal on it and mail it to the in san francisco. >> thanks, george, for a wonderful explanation of the dredge. as we all pass, i want to point out in the spring to get an earn season, they had that own ice -- they cut pond, haul it out, send another rew up on the davidson ditch, dine mate it, so they could get an early jump on the season. the mining season, normal season in the fairbanks to well from 100 days f.e. company ,

became the principle of -- in the fairbanks district, for over 40 years, dredge company established their reputation. shut down briefly for world war ii because of shortages. after the war with every intention of picking up right where they left off. was facing pany significant challenges. a lot of their more experienced workers, for one reason or another, didn't come back from that war, and goods and services gone up quite a bit in price. suffice to it say dredge eight finally in 1958, right where you see her and the of the company dredges, the in 1964. esther >> there were eight of them in the area here. number eight just happens to be the one that we have here right and it collected thousands and thousands of unces of gold and it ran from

1928 all the way to 1959, and stopped here right behind me it dug its last bucket of dirt in 1959. has been g revitalized. there is hard rock mining here. mine, itsort knox gold life has just been extended 10 years here. pogo mining outside of fairbanks. starting up tion about 75 miles north of us here. it's kind of all part of it. in the gold stream valley here and it was named gold stream for a reason. amount of tremendous gold that's been taken out of this valley here. out of and thousands of in its of gold entirety. >> juneau is the capital city of alaska. located in the state's panhandle, with a population of over 30,000. capitol city ote in the country. there are no roads connecting state. to the rest of the

despite this, it's a popular destination for crews ships and coming to ride the mount roberts tram and visit glacier.l coming up, we continue our pecial look at alaska with a visit to the capitol building built in 1931. >> welcome to the state capitol in juneau, alaska. started construction in 1929 finished in 1931. juneau was designated the in 1900 by congress, as district l of the then. the primary industry in alaska at the time was gold mining. was discovered in juneau in 1880, and it was the town in the area, and

certainly the center of industry area.e so it was the most important city at the time. capital, ditional russia, was in codiac, and then it moved to sitka and it stayed sitka for a while and then as ress designated juneau the capital of the district, and that area was moved from sitka juneau. this building was originally $712,000, $8 per square foot. the total cost including all the a million was about dollars. this is a very modest rendition co-: -- deco architecture. building and dest it's probably because it originally was intended to be a a eral building with territorial component. bout 3/4 of the building was dedicated to federal offices and

the other ncies, and third was dedicated to territorial government. really a federal and territorial building which was building when e it was built in 1929. there was one very distinctive building stic of the bych was a portico supported four large marble columns. those marble columns are marble alaska.ine in southeast they are about 24 or 25 feet high. there is no mistaking the front entry of the building. distinctive. the site was selected, it was an atire block which sounds like lot but since the building takes up almost the entire block there like you ttle ground have in other capitals. but there are some interesting capital.ons with the one is right across the street isa plaza, and in that plaza

a statue of william henry stewart. secretary of state for president abraham lincoln, negotiated a treaty with the russian minister that united states, resulted in transferring russian america at the time to the states, which was later renamed alaska. 150th t commemorated the anniversary of that treaty, one of the event was construction of william thhenry right capital.om the very prominent in many 230e6s of the capital today. ight now we're standing in the lobby of the ground flash, this is a very low ceiling space. as dynamic as some of the other capitals where you enter. it's a very welcome place. by lobby ask surrounded marble, which is the same one used in the columns outside. and used here on the floor on the other walls.

so it's another representation resources in an the construction of the building. e have moved to the chambers for the house of representatives, on the east the end of the east wing of the second floor of the capital building. this is the same location that the original house of representatives was housed. point in time, there were only 16 members of the house of representatives. today, we have 40. you will notice in one place that there are some large olumns, sort of in the building, and those are original onstruction columns, original structural building columns. the room has expanded beyond that, because it takes more room for the greater number of legislators, and the interesting 1931, when they irst opened here, they did not have offices. so all the legislators worked at heir desks so the historical

photos that we have of them during session shows papers all and that's nots, the case today. every legislator has their own office. and it was a very plain room. plastard ceiling. the ceiling has been raised with hutch better lighting today. the desks were like small tables that each legislator had, so it's been a improvement. the house and senate chambers are almost like the house larger than being the senate chamber. there is a large dias at the front. seal was adopted in the district era. of ncludes representation the different industries in alaska's logging, fishing, also, agriculture, and

different 3078lations, human esources, the indigenous population which is a very, a considerable population in alaska. 25% nk it represents about of the total population, and the in gitnis people are active the legislature as well. we just moved into the senate chambers. the senate has room for 20 senators. used to be the territorial museum, on the second floor, and the senate chamber original li was in the southeast corner of the second floor, and about moved the senate chambers because it was more -- it would it was not fit in the small senate created a new y room in the west wing of the second floor. decorated exactly the same as the house chambers, it's just smaller. it only houses 20 senators as opposed to the house which has 40.

an interesting piece of alaska has, and it was set up, was the alaska permanent fund. when oil was discovered and when started to be produced from rud doe bay, alaska had a real windfall. one of the issues was discussed was how do we deal with the influx of cash knowing this is a resource that will eventually un out or be depleted so a permanent fund was set up to revenue from the the oil industry. the corpus cannot be spent ithout a certain amount of approval from the constituents. of the revenue that spun off that is available for revenue. right now i think there is $70 billion in that fund.

it had a unique feature, every ear, residents of the state would be given a dividend check just like you were a stock and it was based on the corpus produced by the of the permanent fund. it varied from a few hundred couple of to a thousand dollars, and very significant. just now, it's being considered some of that will be used for state operations because it set up as a "rainy day fund." is now the oil revenue decreasing, the cost of state overnment has not decreased significantly so we're looking at other ways to fund state government and one of the issues some of the revenue from the permanent fund to help finance the state government. into the moved governor's office on the third floor of the southeast corner of the building. has alwaysr's office been located in this portion of the building. owever, it's been totally

remodeled from the earlier days. during the recent reconstruction f this building, and the retro fit of this building, all of the exterior walls were removed. o from this building you can see directly to the outside, so has been restored, constructed in, and restored to to the it was prior renovation. of the interesting things is during -- alaska being a district and alaska being a erritory, governors were appointed by the president of the united states. prior to statehood, of course, -- were elected by the constituents in the state. alaska has been very fortunate to have distinguished snores. governor egan was the first alaska of the state of and served two different terms, was from valdez. instrumental in helping to draft the state's constitution important ery governor. gorbachev greening was another mportant governor after

territorialle days, and another important figure. laska's current governor is an rnor bill walker, who is independent. nd he'll be bill walker is an independent and the two of them were elected to the first term a little while ago and they'll be running again. this building is a good representation of alaska. it's very welcoming. very collegial atmosphere where legislators have the opportunity to meet routinely with members of the other body and with the executive branch. it's a very modest representation. i think that fits with alaska values. that they want to get the best or their buck. i think it's a good representation. the history of that era, the 1920's, 1930's. and good fit for alaska capital.

>> mendenhighly is a 13-mile-long glacier. it's one of 38 glacers located in juneau. >> this has been a big part of alaska basically forever. alaska has been known for its salmon production. the world knows we have the most pristine waters basically in the world. the cleanest waters ever. the fish derived from these waters, i don't think it get any better. the seafood industry is one of the corner stones of the alaska economy. it employs nearly 60,000 people each year and accounts for bout $1.5 billion in wages and

income and along with the visitor industry, oil and gas, federal government spending and mining is one of the key economic drivers in the state. we're at a seafood plant in juneau, alaska. alaska glacier seafoods. to me this is a family thifpblgt i was raised in a smalltown called petersburg. a little bit south of juneau here. which was very well known for ts seafood industry. my whole family is directly or indirectly involved in it. this is a family business. my son and i own it. we started out with one skiff back in 1995. catching shrimp. selling them on the street. now the company does over 13 million pounds a year of seafood. it's a truly success story, the

american dream. it's very doable. very doable. the seafood industry in alaska is about a $5 billion industry. if you look nationwide, it's closer to $12 billion or $13 billion, if you follow the alaska seafood resource from its harvest to in-state processing, through distribution, through wholesalers. and retailers. right to the kitchen counter or to the restaurant. it's a $13 billion industry. so it's a huge national economic footprint. there's about 100,000 jobs across the country connected to the seafood industry in alaska. here in alaska, as i noted, it's a $5 billion industry. with value added all the way from when the fisherman pulls the salmon onboard the boat, where he earns income and pace his crew, he purchases goods and services in support of his fishing operations and that creates its own set of multiplier impacts. again, in small communities where there might not be much

other economic activity. the processer buys the fish from him. he employs workers to help process the fish and purchases goods and services and paes property taxes and other taxes to state government. having yet another set of economic multipliers. again, across the state. the taxes paid by the seafood industry are critically important part of funding to many local governments across the state. in the absence of that funding they wouldn't have resources to provide basic services and infrastructure to residents of these small communities. we do not catch ourselves. we are a buyer, processer, reseller. everything we do is caught by basically independent fishermen, independent businesses. which is really cool because a lot of them are family-operated. you might see a boat come in that has a load of crab toer a load of halibut and there might be the father and mother and two or three kids aboard. it's truly a family bills. probably not too much unlike farms in the midwest.

these are all independent individuals and they catch and we buy. the seafood industry is seasonal. but less so than it has been. as we've looked for ways as a state and as the industry's looked for ways to add value to the product that it harvests, it's less seasonal than it was. clearly salmon seasonal and salmon is the heart of the industry across the state. as the fish return to inside waters from the high seas, that's when fishermen have the opportunity to catch them and processors process them and that's a busy time of year, from june through august and into september. our peak season, of course, is like july and august. that's the two big months of the whole year. that's when we have the large salmon returns. a lot of poundage involved. starting out in january, we'll be doing some pacific. that will move into our crab season which is mid february. we have a crab season called

golden king crab. they'll start mid february. they'll go anywhere from a week or two up to months. depending on the effort, the catch rates and all that stuff. and then we'll kind of move into halibut come march. and that will actually go on to about seven or eight months. as we get into the summer time, hen the salmon start coming. the product we're currently doing right now is dungeness crab. they are coming into the facility. they come in these totes. and as you can see, we have ice on them to keep them cool. to keep them a little bit calm so they're not jumping around too much. they seem to like it a little bit. they'll go to what we call the brushes. as you can see, they're rubbing algae -- cleaning the off. they come off bright and clean after the cooking process.

we are banding the crab. so what we want those crab to do when they go through the cookers, we want the crab to kind of be tucked in nice and neat so we don't have legs sticking out and that's what the banding is for. they'll be put into the cookers with those bands on and that's how they'll come out of the cooker. sometimes we'll do custom orders where the buyer would like just all sides, it doesn't make a difference. what we call ocean run. and in some cases we have buyers that will order a very specific size. so in some cases, as you can see, we're weighing these crab out. because you have different size breaks on them. the standard weight on dungeness crab is from 1 1/2 to two pounds and two to 2 1/2. sometimes you break it down into quarters. then they're put in their proper baskets for cooking.

slst a little bit different than some of the west coast states that are big crab producers -- alaska is a little bit different than some of the west coast states that are big crab producers. on the west coast they have a shell requirement of 6 1/4 where we're 6 1/2. so our average size of our crab here are larger. just simply because we have to go with the larger shell which obviously means a larger crab. we only process males. females, as soon as they're identified, they're pitched right back in the water. that's to ensure yield have -- we'll have crab for generations to come. what you're seeing is a basket of crab that was previously weighed, put into the cooker. they'll be in there for approximately 17 minutes before they'll be removed. from that point, they will go into what we call the killer.

which is another tank right over here. we have chilled water circulating throughout that tank. and the idea here is to rapidly drop the interior temperature of the crab so we don't continue cooking. because we all know with fish, if you take them out of the oven, in this case the cooker, they'll keep on cooking for a while. so what we want to do is we totally want to control the time cooked. that has a lot to do with the quality of the crab when it's ll over. so the temperature of this crab , as you can see, we check it to make sure we're at a certain -- what's important here is when you go from, in this case, freshwater, to a brian water, the crab -- brine water, the crab is at a certain temperature. that depends on what we refer to as salt uptake. if the crab is really warm and goes into the tank, it has a high salt uptake. not a real desirable product.

so it's important that we control the temperature of the crab going into the brine. so we'll spend about 35 minutes. when that crab comes out, frozen pretty good. they'll go into the freezer to finish them off. to put the final touch on these crab, we'll put basically a sugar water glaze on them to prevent any freezer drying going on. so this is going to totally encapsulate that crab, basically a coat of ice. everybody's got in the freezer before, the kids drop some popsicles or whatever and it stays there for years. that's kind of the idea behind the sugar water. it doesn't evaporate very fast. so it keeps the crab encapsulated. -- they're e're not freezer burned.

they go into bags. the bags get sealed. at that point we have certain net weight that we're achieving. and in this case i believe it's 0 pounds, so crabs have a little bit different size to them. you can switch and swap a little bit. to hit that 30 pounds exactly in your box. as you can see, those yellow crates that have already been preweighed will have that net 30 pounds in them. these people will grab them and put them in the box. off to the next station. most of our product is sold right in the u.s. we're happy about that. however, some of the items we do, we sell them to europe. we sell a lot of caviar. into europe. japan. china gets a lot of cucumbers, as well as some of the species

of salmon. so as small as we are, we're truly an international company in terms of sales. where it goes. >> of course alaska's seafood resources have played a critical role in the subsistence economy that's been in place in alaska for many, many generations, for hundreds and thousands of years. so it's got a very, very long history in that regard and continues to play a very important role in the subsistence lifestyle of people all across coastal alaska and in interior alaska as well. the first real commercial industrial kinds of activity in alaska date back 150 years. what's probably most noteworthy about the history of the industry is alaska's effort to gain control of its fisheries management was sort of a key driver for statehood, for seeking statehood in 1959. since then, the industry has grown steadily and we've learned to diversify our

product base and our increasingly competitive in the global marketplace. where the industry is today is one of the key drive,, and a healthy, very sustainable industry. >> the state of alaska, they're kind of the watchdog of the salmon industry here in the state. there's a lot of rules in place in terms of, they have certain estimate what is the returns will be, one thing they do not want to do is overfish. very critical that we have enough fish released that will spawn and just continue this year after year after year. so the state has a lot of rules in place. very closely monitored. if you were to go out in the water today, would you see fishing game enforcement out there making sure that the boats are staying in places they're supposed to stay in. that he not getting too close to creeks. -- they're not getting too close to creeks. we have rules in place to allow for a certain amount of total allowable catch.

state may determine, we can catch 100,000 salmon and be ok. they'll manage that so they do not exceed that. >> the alaska department of fish and game and other management authorities have been very careful about -- very diligent in establishing commercial fishing seasons that provide for that sustained yield. some key management tools that have been employed over the last 30 years include limited entry commercial fisheries program which in the 1970's controlled the participation in commercial fisheries in alaska instead of a wide-open derby-type style. you had to have a permit to commercial fish. that was one key measure back 40 years ago now. then you get into the 1990's, the i.f.q. system. the individual fisherman -- fishing quota system again, put a cap on participation in the fisheries and made the fisheries more sustainable. better managed and safer for

fishermen. >> the seafood industry is extremely important to alaska. a lot of people are employed in the state. there's a lot of movement of product between alaska and countries around the world. just creates -- it's just that chain of events, the supplies at the grocery stores, all the transportation. there's just a heck of a lot -- it's a big thing. if seafood went away from here, the state would be a skeleton of what it is. t plays a huge role. >> anchorage, alaska, is the state's largest city. located in the south central portion of the state, it's known as the air crossroads of the world. with nearly 300,000 residents, the city contains more than 40% of alaska's total population. up next, we continue our special look at alaska with a visit to the smithsonian arctic study center to learn about alaska native culture.

>> i think i'm a born-again native. being an alaska native, for my generation, is embracing your her tang by choice. -- heritage by choice. our dancers are creating new dances and creating new songs. >> we're still carrying on got-betweens. we can get people together, talk things out. it's a work in progress. we lost it all before. we're just starting to get it back now. think we can. >> i often tell visitors that if you went from the south end of the gallery to the north, you'd be embarking on a thousand-mile hike across the cultural landscape of alaska. along the way you'd be meeting the people and all the different regions and seeing many of their masterworks of art and design that have been

created over the centuries for life in the arctic. this is living our culture, sharing our heritage, the first people of alaska. it is a very broad exploration of culture, language and art, of the 20 different alaska native cultures. there are over 600 works on display here in this gallery and i thought what we would do is take a walk through and look at some highlight items. i'd really like to talk about some aspects of indigenous knowledge. because i think that's what we -- what the exhibition celebrates. >> we're in southeastern alaska. very southeastern part of the state. i wanted to talk a little bit about this shahman's rattle. and the rattle is a wonderful piece of sculpture. one of my favorite pieces.

you'll see that there are fogs -- frogs that are carved into the face of the wind figure. and they are merging in the warm wind of spring. and there's a story from way back about how the frogs mocked aven, who was the creator, trickster, spirit of ancient times. and raven was angry and froze the frogs into the mud. this mask is about spring, it's about re-emergence of the frogs. the frogs are helping spirits to the shahman. and so we can imagine that this rattle was probably used in a curing ceremony and it was invoking the frog spirits and the spirit of the spring wind. i wanted to look at this beautiful head dress. this is a ceremonial head dress. it's from the community down in

the queen charlotte islands. d it has a long train of furs. it has a carved front which is kind of a small mask that would go above the forehead. then on the top there's a basket of sea lion which is kers that would have been filled up with -- whiskered that would have been filled up with swan or eagle down. when the dancer would dance, she would shake her head and the feggetters would float up and then come down around -- feathers would float up and then come down around like snow falling. this particular head dress is -- has a wonderful story. it's a portrait of a 12-year-old girl and she was the daughter of a chief and their house, i love the name, their house was the house of contentment. located in their village. and this head dress reflects her high rank, her royal rank, within the height of society.

in many parts of alaska, people inherit their clan membership from their mother. so it's maternal. passes down through the mother. and they belong to her clan and that clan will be among a larger group of eagle or raven clans. and then what the people call their opposites would be the -- if you're a raven, your opposite is a member of an eagle clan and those two sides, those two intermarry with each other. they honor each other. they help each other out in times of crisis. they host ceremonies for the other side. so there's this great exchange, this balance, this reciprocity. this piece is from the clink et region. also in southeast alaska. and t is a woven tunic what that refers to is a style

of art that's woven mountain get to hair and then woven over strands of cedar bark. then the specific design style, which has these wonderful bold designs that portray the emblems or of particular clans. in this case, this very abstract design represents the diving killer whale. anyone from that community seeing this would be instantly aware of the person's clan affiliation, which would be -- and this is an emblem of the clan. to explain the design, this is a diving killer whale. the large eyes down at the bottom are the whale's eyes. it's diving. its face is at the bottom. its body rises above. and then you see two spirit faces. these are particular separate souls of the whale. one at the blow hole and one that represents the body of the

whale. and then the tail of the whale has eyes built into it. a tunic like this would be worn often at a ceremony and this is to -- the most important ones were memorials to someone who had died. the ceremony would reflect on the person's ancestry. and the ravens or eagles would host the ceremony for the other side. this mask is from the culture of the lower yukon river and it portrays the wild man. and also some people call it the cry baby mask. phillip arrow, who was one of our advisors, elders, who came to washington to look at pieces in the collection, said that the only thing it was missing was a dangling wooden carving that represented the is not of the crying baby.

another feature of the mask you can see, the lines around the eyes that look like goggles. they actually represent the enhanced vision, the spirit vision of the wild man. and these masks were part of hunting ceremonies and at the end of the hunting season, and in the wintertime, when they would have the ceremonies, one aspect of that was releasing carved sticks that represented the souls of the animals, placing them in the river and the river would take them out to sea. that's returning the souls of the animals to the environment and the next spring, those animals would come back. because they had been treated with respect. by the people. we're looking at an eating bowl and a ladle from southwest alaska. on the inside of the bowl, which was personal, this is a personal eating bowl, but on the inside is an emblem that

shows a caribou that is linked by a chord to its inner spirit or -- and this reflects the conception that animals have an inner life. it's often human in form. and that animals and humans can transform one into the other. and then next to that is a ladle, the painting there is of a seal. and it shows the seal's internal organs, its stomach and ribs. but one of the customs that is important to note is that the people would welcome a seal that they had killed or any animal from salt water, when they brought it to shore they would give a symbolic drink of freshwater to the animal. this was a way of welcoming it. and that animals that live in the salty sea are dreaming of sweet water. this park is from st. lawrence island in the bearing sea, made by the people of the island. and it's made from seal sbess

tins. these are the bearded seals. very large seals. intestines make wonderful waterproof rain gear. and in this case, the intestines have been cleaned, blown up, flit and then sound into these strips that you can see. this beautiful white color comes from hanging them out to freeze in the winter. and it gives them this parchment color. it's been decorated with the feathers from the top of a sea bird. this is a ceremonial parka and it's worn by people when they would welcome a whale to the community. they killed the whale. and they brought it back to shore and they would go down to the shore to give the whale a drink of freshwater. and the sell brants would wear a parka like this. a parka like this could easily last a lifetime. they're very durable. and flexible. and this one looks rather dry

because it's been in a museum for over 100 years. but if you sprayed it with water, it would regain its flexibility. so these were light, flexible, waterproof garments that are actually quite warm as well. i think of them as a great example of indigenous technology and design, using resources from the natural environment to create something that enables people to live in the arctic. this parka is from the region of arctic alaska. actually from the community. and this parka's from the 1890's, collected during the first international polar year. and is made of reindeer. that gives you these white furs, which are from the reindeer's chest. and then the brown fur here is from its legs. and it's surrounded by wolf fur

around the hood. caribou and reindeer clothing is very warm. and this keeps the caribou warm and if you make clothing from it, it's very, very warm. this is a woman's parka. it has the feminine style of a rounded bottom. it's a beautiful piece of sewing, of skin sewing. and it would most likely be worn at a winter ceremony and it would display the skill of the seem stress, of the woman who so hed it. there are many continuities in alaska native life from the past to the present, including whaling. and the people of seven northern alaskan communities go out and hunt bowhead whales out in the ocean. oftentimes they're in traditional skin boats that are covered with split walrus skins or seal skins. and part of one of the traditional boats would be this seat. this would go in the back,

where the whaling captain, who was also the person who was steering the boat, would sit. this whale would be hidden under the seat. you're looking at the bottom of the seat here. and it was one of the ways that e people, the hunters in the boat, communicated their respect to the whale. could you call it a hunting charm or a sign of respect. that the art conveyed. one of the elders told us that when the whales are down under the water and they're looking up at the skin boats above them, of the skin boats of the hunters, the whales look to see which boats are clean, which ones are white, which one has the hunters who are wearing new clothing. and thus showing their respect. they will go up to that boat. they'll pick which hunters they want to give themselves to. i'd like for visitors to this exhibition to come away with a sense of the great depth and

breadth of indigenous knowledge. if you imagine you are in antarctic and subarctic landscape and people have created these cultures, this art, all from the resources of the land, and the sea, and using their knowledge systems, f history, of technology, of spiritual ecology of the landscape, knowledge of animals, using all of that, they have created the rich cultures that you experience in his gallery. >> our visit to alaska is an american history tv exclusive. we showed it today to introduce you to c-span's cities tour. for seven years we've traveled to u.s. cities, bringing the literary scene and historic sites to our viewers. you can watch more of our visits at

c-span.org/citiestour. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. isit ncicap.org] >> c-span's washington journal d live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. oming up saturday morning -- >> be hure so -- sure to watch c-span's washington journal d live at 7:00 eastern saturday morning. join the discussion. >> tonight on c-span, a discussion about conservatism

from a recent for numb texas. that's followed by the mayer of bristol, england, talking about migration challenges. and an annual conference for u.s. mayors. and then at 10:00 eastern, news makers has nasa administrator jim briden stein discussing the trump administration's space priorities. and later, the communicators looks at 5-g and the next generation of wireless technology. >> texas governor greg abbott and georgia congressman jodi highs were speakers at a -- jodi heiss were speakers at a recent forum in texas. >> governor abbott will be up here in a few minutes. i want toal