It's Illegal to Give a Moose Beer: 25 Wild Facts About Alaska
By Michele Debczak
Located 500 miles away from the nearest state, there’s likely a lot you haven’t heard about Alaska. Here are 25 facts about the last frontier.
1. Dog mushing is the official state sport.
2. The state flag was designed by a 13-year-old boy. After calling on students throughout the territory to submit their ideas, Alaska ultimately decided on Benny Benson’s scene of the Big Dipper and the North Star in 1927.
You can thank a 13-year-old boy for this. (Photo: iStock)
3. Seventeen of the 20 highest peaks in the U.S. are located in Alaska.
4. Some of Alaska’s bizarre moose-specific legislation has included laws against pushing a moose from a plane, viewing a moose from a plane, and giving a moose beer.
Related: “No Saggy Pants”: America’s Most Bizarre Laws
5. Haines, Alaska is home to America’s first museum solely dedicated to hammers. Visitors to the Hammer Museum can view their fascinating collections of hammer sculptures, handle-making machinery, and spring-loaded meat tenderizers.
6. Balto is the famous sled dog that’s usually credited with delivering medicine to a remote Alaskan village, but some argue that Togo was the true hero. Before Balto completed the last 55 miles of the journey, Togo pulled the medicine through 200 miles of wind and snow. His stuffed and preserved body is on display at the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Museum in Wasilla, Alaska.
7. Alaska broke their record high when temperatures reached 100° in 1915.
8. Their low of -80° F recorded in Alaska’s Endicott Mountains still holds the record for the nation’s all-time low.
9. Alaska has more coastline than the other 49 states combined.
10. Because of their long summer days, Alaska is capable of producing some unusually oversized produce. Some notable specimens that have been harvested in recent years include a 35-pound broccoli, a 65-pound cantaloupe, and a 138-pound cabbage.
With apologies to Texas, all produce is bigger in Alaska. (Photo: Kim F via Flickr // CC BY-NC 2.0)
11. About 1,700 miles south of the geographic North Pole lies the Fairbanks suburb of North Pole, Alaska. The town’s famous Santa Claus House gift shop is open year-round, and thousands of letters addressed to Santa are sent to the zip code each year. (A real-life Santa Claus was even recently elected to City Council.)
12. The Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia is around 55 miles wide at its narrowest point. Within it sit the Russian island of Big Diomede and the U.S. island of Little Diomede, which are just two and a half miles apart. So in theory, it would be possible for some Alaskans to see Russia from their houses.
Related: Behold: Adventure and Beauty in Alaska
13. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces bombed and invaded the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. The occupation lasted nearly a year.
14. Moose, caribou, and bear killed by cars in Alaska are considered property of the state. When road kill is reported, the carcasses are butchered by volunteers and distributed as food to charity organizations.
15. America’s largest national forest is the Tongass. It’s about three times the size of the runner-up, which is also located in Alaska.
16. Each year, brave Alaskans compete to be crowned the king or queen of their throne in the Fur Rondy Festival outhouse races. Teams outfit the bottoms of their custom-built outhouses with skis and race each other down a two-lane track. In addition to the title of first place, prizes are awarded for the most colorful, best-engineered, and cleanest commodes.
Outhouse racing is a serious sport in Alaska. (Photo: Mike Juvrud via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0)
17. The Thing, John Carpenter’s 1982 horror classic set in Antarctica, was filmed in Alaska.
18. In Barrow, Alaska, the longest night lasts for 67 days. In the summer they make up for it with 82 days of uninterrupted sunlight.
19. If Manhattan had the same population density as Alaska, only 28 people would inhabit the island.
20. There are 107 men for every 100 women in Alaska, the highest male-to-female ratio in the United States.
21. Juneau is America’s only state capital that isn’t accessible by road.
22. In 1867, Russia agreed to sell Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million, which amounted to about two cents an acre.
23. Many hotels in Alaska offer Northern Lights wake-up calls upon request.
You’ll never miss the Northern Lights in Alaska with a wake-up service. (Photo: iStock)
24. The Aleuts, Inupiat, Yuit, Athabascans, Tlingit, and Haida make up the major native groups of Alaska. At more than 14 percent, Alaska has a more concentrated indigenous population than any other state.
25. For years, the small town of Talkeetna, Alaska hosted the annual Moose Dropping Festival. Varnished pieces of numbered moose droppings were dumped from a crane into a parking lot and participants whose corresponding droppings landed closest to the center of a target received cash prizes. The event eventually grew too dangerously large for the town of 850 to handle and was retired in 2009.
More from Mental Floss:
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7 Reasons to Never Ever, Ever Vacation on a Cruise Ship
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