Alaska or  “the great land”  comes from a native word Aleyska. This place justifies its name. Abundant volcanoes, mountains, glaciers and abundantly long day and nights. It also has a vast reserve of natural oil,  fishing and natural gas.

This state is a peninsula and has several smaller peninsulas of its own. Alaska is bordered by Canada on one side and the Arctic and the Pacific oceans on the others. You know one interesting fact about Alaska. Although it is a part of US, it is less than 50 miles away from Russia. Its capital is Juneau, located in the Southeast region of Alaska, and has a population of 31,275.

You can view the northern lights from Alaska almost 243 days in a year. That is long, I bet you don’t even go to school for that long in a year;) A very interesting thing about Alaska is that summer there has long days and winter has long nights. In fact, there is a place called Barrows that is north most region of Alaska that has 84 days of summer! Wow! What fun! All play and no sleep.

So why does Alaska have such long days in summer and long nights in winter? It is because it is very close to North pole. The closer you go towards the north pole, the days will be  longer in  summer and shorter in winter. In Summer, Alaska enjoys extended daylight hours in all parts of the state. And the night is what we, usually, call the twilight. This phenomenon is also called Midnight Sun. All this happens because the Earth has a tilt. All the seasons are affected because of that, and the most dramatic one is seen near the poles.

Alaska has been blessed with a variety of animals. Brown bear, Black bear, Polar bear, moose, bison, orca, caribou are just a few of them. Found in large numbers because of the wilderness. Alaska is home to endless native plants. Western hemlock, Alaska Cedar, Salmonberry and black cottonwood are some examples.

There are 79 hot springs in Alaska, scattered throughout the western and northern Alaska.  Almost 1/4 of them can be used for bathing and the rest are used for agricultural purposes.

Phew! Alaska certainly does have a lot of everything.

Dumb laws :

Alaska surely has some very strange laws –

• You cannot view a moose from an airplane
• You can hunt a bear, but can’t wake up one for a picture.
• Flamingos can’t get a haircut ;) are thy even found in Alaska
• You cannot push a moose out of an airplane. Ha! As if someone would even want to do that.