The Alaska Almanac: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Alaska
Written: Jul 11 '08 (Updated Jul 11 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A fun to read jaunt through all sorts of Alaska facts and trivia.
Cons: I didn't really need to know the name of every government official in Alaska.
The Bottom Line: A must for all travelers to Alaska whose minds pop up with quirky questions. These are the answers.
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| realtraveller's Full Review: |
Traveling around Alaska, I had questions that either my guidebooks didn't answer or were hard to look up. One night in a B & B, I found The Alaska Almanac, an older edition, and it was fascinating reading. So when I found the new edition in the Alaska SeaLife Center bookshop, I snapped it up, read it every night and when the rest of my family had questions about Alaska, I had the handy dandy answer guide.
It's fun reading too. Not the dry, dull stuff. Humorous, informative, and organized alphabetically from Agriculture to Zip Codes, with everything in between: Climate Records to Record Trophy Fish, Microbreweries to Museums, Permafrost to the Permanent Fund.
Examples:
My question: "Fishing is front page news in the Alaska papers? Why is that?"
Answer: Go to Fishing, Commercial and find out that seafood is Alaska's primary export and that Alaska accounts for over 52% of all domestically produced seafood. I also found out that Alaska prohibits fish farming.
Then there's the fun fact in a side bar on sport fishing: Alaskans spend $957 million each year to catch 6,346,098 sport fish. That's $150. per fish!
My question: When I saw signs along the highway to watch out for moose and telling how many moose were killed each winter in highway accidents, I wondered how many moose Alaska had.
Answer: 166,000
Did you know that there are no reptiles in Alaska, but that there are 40 species of mosquitos, so numerous that "Researchers on the northern tundra reported up to 9,000 mosquito bites per minute. At that rate a person would lose half his blood supply in 2 hours".
What are those road signs about subsistence hunting all about?
Where and what is permafrost?
How much of Alaska is covered by glaciers and where are they?
How are sourdough hotcakes made?
I'd like to know more about the famous Alaska oil pipeline.
How much does each Alaskan get each year from oil and gas royalties?
What's the population of Fairbanks?
All the answers to these questions were simple to find in the alphabetical format of this almanac.
This paperback is easy reading. Jump around and look things up. There are boxed "Nuggets" with interesting stories and other side bars with humorous Alaskan stories. There are maps showing the mountain ranges pinpointing the highest ones, a map outlining the limits of the permafrost, charts on Alaskan employment rates, maps showing where Native Alaskan tribes live and on and on. So it's not just dry facts. There's also a list of suggested books for those who want more reading about Alaska in more depth. This is a great resource for answering a traveler's questions about Alaska. Better than any of the standard guidebooks I read.
Now, I think I'll try for one of those trophy fish. How much is an Alaska sport fishing license, anyway? Check out page 76.
Recommended:
Yes
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