If you look up the word "frontier" in the dictionary, you're probably going to find a reference to a boundary or a limit. It can be an international border. Or it can be the limit of civilization, as it is frequently used in the context of American history. Regardless of the specifics, it is the end of something, the place where the world you know meets the unknown.
But beyond that threshold is also opportunity. That was the reality for tens of thousands in the middle of the nineteenth century, as every child who ever played Oregon Trail on classroom computers knows well. It does not come without risk, as became apparent to those same children while passing digital headstones mourning the loss of the beloved Stinky to dysentery. However, the hope of wealth and bounty trumped, for many, the potential costs of leaving behind their stable existence in the east. That is why so many went to Oregon or California in the 1840s and 50s. Or the Klondike in 1897 and 1898. Or Nome in 1900.
That spirit still defines Alaska today. It is a place where fortunes can be and are made. There were some who struck it rich at Nome. Others, later on, found another kind of gold under an obscure bay called Prudhoe. Less well known, but equally successful, are those who capitalized on the Alaskan seafood industry and the shipping businesses that move oil, ore, and other natural resources out of Alaska and virtually everything else in.* And the popular appeal of striking it rich still resonates today. Television shows like the Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers, and Gold Rush (I think that's the name at least) all revolve around men and a few women who are trying to extract their American Dream from the Alaskan wilderness.
*Interestingly, the greatest beneficiary of the Alaskan shipping industry may be Seattle. A federal law passed in the 1920s required all goods shipped to Alaska to go through Seattle, which was a boon to the local port and the owners of the vessels that made the journey north. The importance of this business to Seattle's growth is exemplified in the name of the street running along the downtown shoreline: Alaskan Way.
I've already mentioned the demographics of the passengers on my flight to Anchorage, but briefly, there were three broad groups. The first are the Alaskan natives, who were going home. The second are tourists, mostly bound for cruises and mostly elderly. The final group is those, mostly young men, going to Alaska to work. Many of those within this group are no less fortune seekers than were the fortyniners or the stampeders (and this has nothing to do with Joe Montana, Steve Young, or Calgary).
The two men sitting in my row were headed up to work on a hundred million dollar fish hatchery. One of them, who had been to Alaska dozens of times, put on his high-end noise-canceling headphones and slept through most of the flight. The other, who would have been called a cheechako a century ago, went through several servings of wine and liquor.* Both of them seemed to have the technical skill required to build a successful hatchery, but they needed the fortune that could be so fickle in Alaska. One man, the veteran of Alaska, was calm and collected through the flight. I imagine that he knew that skill could only take them so far, and was at peace with the risk of failure. The other man was an impatient type, one who only trusts himself and will not admit to himself the possibility of the entire project coming crashing down upon him. He preferred to turn to drink to deal with the immense pressure he was under.
*Cheechako is a Chinook word meaning "newcomer" that was used during the Klondike Gold Rush for miners coming up to Alaska and the Yukon for the first time.
Others on the flight were oilmen or fishermen. While their undertakings are more established, they are physically demanding and extraordinarily stressful. They would be in rough seas or on the Arctic shore doing round the clock jobs with very real potential to fail, not to mention the danger to their lives. These men are well paid, to be sure, but there is a very good reason that alcohol is banned in Deadhorse, the town at the northern end of the Alaska Pipeline. There are simply too many men, like the one sitting next to me on the plane, who cannot live with the possibility of failing to make their fortunes and would use drinking as their sole outlet. For some, if not most of them, they must either flourish or perish.
That was the world of the wagon train pioneers and the fur trappers that preceded them in the nineteenth century. It was the same for the stampeders fifty years later. Now, Alaska truly is the Last Frontier, the last place where almost manic men can go to get away from their struggles and extract a fortune from the land with little more than blood and sweat. Civilization as we know it ends where the roads and ferries do, and you could make the valid argument that even that might be generous. Opportunity, however, does not, and Alaska's vast wilds are honey to the flies who come hoping to strike it rich.
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