the funeral procession for one of them, alicia kent king, was said to be the second-largest of the century, bested only by the lincolns. alaska was purchased by the u.s. in 1857 and the deal was completed by the secretary of state william seward. after he retired, he was asked, what is the greatest contribution he made during his long and distinguished career. he had to pause for one moment to say that the purchase of alaska was his most important undertaking, "bu itt will take the country a generation to truly appreciate that." now here we are, multiple generations later. this is our time to appreciate it like never before. this is america's moment to stand up as an arctic nation and for the arctic's future, because far from the barren backcountry that many thought it to be in seward's time, it is now the forefront of abundance and opportunity. it houses 13% of the world's undiscovered oil, 30% of its undiscovered gas, and an abundance of minerals like gold, diamonds and millions of square miles of untapped resources. fisheries galore. and its centerpiece, the arctic ocean, is rapidly tak