ketchikan is an island, and nome might as well be an island in terms of isolation. they are both communities that i think the pioneers looked to as a place of opportunity. nome for the gold rush. ketchikan was about the strength of the fisheries, which drew people not only from the lower 48 but a strong filipino contingency. both pioneering towns in their own right that way. both beautiful communities to this day, i love them. >> what does your chairmanship of the energy and natural resources committee bring to alaska? sen. murkowski: i think it allows alaska to be in that national spotlight when it comes to our energy resources. we are a resource rich state. 720,000 people, but we have more natural resources, whether it be trees, fish, oil, minerals, natural gas, coal. an extraordinary mineral base. an opportunity to contribute to the national conversation on energy is extraordinarily important, and coming from an energy producing state like alaska, it becomes all the more important. >> natural gas is growing in alaska? sen. murkowski: it is growing. we have been p

and now around the state, whether you're up up or down in ketchikan, they enjoy award-winning, world class health care in a system that the native people control. and that really would not have been possible without people like john mccain fighting for our native people. i think that john -- john would have been proud of me on the afternoon that he passed. i was in the village, a small community, about 800 people on saint lawrence island, about 40 miles from russia, in the bairn sea -- baron sea, one of the remote places in alaska and i was there to conduct a field hearing on the indian affairs committee on overcrowding housing where our native people are forced to live in extraordinarily difficult homes with difficult sanitation problems in these very remote communities. john was really a champion for ending the third world living conditions that too many of our native people still endure. and we got a lot of work -- a lot of unfinished work on that front. and i plan to attack it with the same vigor that john brought to the fight. i mentioned john's love for our military, for our ve