What’s Unique About Alaska?                                   check out our map

Alaska’s huge size, geographic isolation, Arctic climate, and vast roadless expanses make it unlike any other state. It is stunningly beautiful, but likewise dangerous—with sudden weather changes and hazardous conditions always at hand.

Half the terrain in Alaska is tundra, and mountains and glaciers cover large areas. There are hundreds of miles of coastline and thousands of lakes and rivers. Because Alaska is so far north, much of the state is underlain by permafrost—permanently frozen ground.

Alaska became a state only in 1959—and even then, many Americans thought it was a mistake to grant statehood to a place so far north, with so few people, and a fragile economy that relied on military activities and a handful of resource industries.

Today, largely as a result of North Slope oil development, Alaska has three times the people and five times the jobs it had 40 years ago. Most of the growth has been in a handful of urban areas. Nearly 70 percent of Alaskans live in or near Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau.

So a majority of Alaskan children live in urban areas, and despite the state’s different geography and climate, most now grow up with about the same amenities and services as other American children enjoy.

But there are also hundreds of small villages—many accessible only by air or water—and dozens with fewer than 100 residents. Most residents of these villages are Alaska Natives. Children living in small isolated places lead much different lives from those in bigger communities on the road system. Many villages still lack adequate water and sewer systems, and some still rely on honey buckets. In the past 20 years, state and federal agencies have built sanitation systems in many rural places–but it’s an enormous and ongoing job. Part of the problem is that many areas of Alaska require specially adapted systems that are very expensive to build and operate.

Incomes in most villages are low, and jobs are scarce. At the same time, costs of living are high, partly because it’s so expensive to get supplies to small, remote locations. Costs of building and maintaining schools, community facilities, and houses are also high. Wild fish and game remain important sources of food.

Whether living in cities or villages, all children in Alaska face some special risks posed by very cold weather, dangerous waterways, and other hazards. Alaska’s children and adolescents drown or die in fires more frequently than children elsewhere. The child death and teen violent death rates are far above U.S. averages.

Rural children—who are mostly Alaska Native—are at especially high risk of being hurt or killed in accidents. And a staggering share of young people in rural areas commit or attempt suicide. In several regions, suicide and attempted suicide were the leading causes of death and serious injury among those 19 and under in the late 1990s.

In this data book, we look at (1) the indicators of children’s well-being the Kids Count program uses nationwide; and (2) other measures that reflect conditions Alaskan children face—and that illustrate the sharp differences among regions of a state twice the size of the original 13 American colonies.