--- title: Alaska: LIFE Pictures Celebrating America's 'Last Frontier' description: On the 100th anniversary of Alaska becoming an American territory, LIFE.com presents pictures from the "Last Frontier" by photographer Ralph Crane. canonical: https://time.com/3873894/alaska-in-praise-of-big-country/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2012-08-23T16:28:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:03:55.474Z og:title: Alaska: LIFE Pictures Celebrating America's 'Last Frontier' og:description: On the 100th anniversary of Alaska becoming an American territory, LIFE.com presents pictures from the "Last Frontier" by photographer Ralph Crane. og:url: https://time.com/3873894/alaska-in-praise-of-big-country/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb081a74f6a4f4cc4/698847f055a85986b7a8b1c5/17_00996445.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: LIFE magazine, October 1, 1965 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Alaska: LIFE Pictures Celebrating America's 'Last Frontier' twitter:description: On the 100th anniversary of Alaska becoming an American territory, LIFE.com presents pictures from the "Last Frontier" by photographer Ralph Crane. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb081a74f6a4f4cc4/698847f055a85986b7a8b1c5/17_00996445.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Alaska: In Praise of Big Country by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Aug 23, 2012 4:28 PM UTC  Image from the cover of the October 1, 1965, issue of LIFE. The picture originally ran in color, not black and white. Image from the cover of the October 1, 1965, issue of LIFE. The picture originally ran in color, not black and white.Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Aug 23, 2012 4:28 PM UTC Like other remote, “exotic” lands, the vast expanse of mountains, forests, tundra, wild streams and endless, rugged shoreline known as Alaska has long fired the imagination of millions who have never set foot there. Just as mind-boggling as the 49th state’s spectacular (if sometimes harsh) beauty, however, is that fewer than three-quarters of a million people call the state’s 660,000 square miles home. In other words: Alaska has about one resident per square mile; New Jersey, by comparison, has about 1,200 inhabitants per square mile. Get the picture? The place is _huge_, and even after all these years as a U.S. territory and as an exporter of key resources (primarily oil, abut also seafood, timber, minerals and more) it remains relatively empty. Of course, different parts of what is now Alaska have been occupied by various peoples for thousands of years, long before Europeans and, from the other direction, Russians began arriving in significant numbers a few centuries ago. And yet, after many hundreds of years and several waves of immigration, the fact that Alaska still holds far fewer than a million people is rather astonishing — and in many ways, adds to the Last Frontier’s mystique as a bastion of hardy, rough-and-tumble, solitude-loving homesteaders scraping a living from the land, rivers and sea. (That Alaskans receive more federal aid per capita, in relation to taxes paid, than the citizens of almost any other state is something that isn’t celebrated quite as loudly as that can-do, pioneer spirit.) Here, on the 100th anniversary of Alaska becoming an American territory (it was proclaimed a state in January 1959), LIFE.com presents pictures — many of which did not run in the magazine — made by photographer Ralph Crane for a major cover story in 1965. As LIFE put it in the introduction to the piece: --- > “” --- --- > “” --- Five decades after those words were written, Alaska still retains a good deal of its allure as a place outside of both time and beyond the the strictures and constraints of “the lower 48.” _Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter_ [_@lizabethronk_](https://twitter.com/LizabethRonk)_._ ![Caption from LIFE. "In the bright light of an Alaskan afternoon a band of Eskimos \[sic\] tossed their whaling captain into the air alongside ceremonial arches made of whale jawbones."](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9c225e4f7bd9d769/698847eb8e06017ebd45f972/01_00996450.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp) Caption from LIFE. "In the bright light of an Alaskan afternoon a band of Eskimos \[sic\] tossed their whaling captain into the air alongside ceremonial arches made of whale jawbones." Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Skagway girls who dance in the Days of '98 show do the cancan in the middle of main street. The domed Golden North Hotel and false-front buildings date back to Klondike gold-rush days." Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. Alaska, 1965. Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. Alaska, 1965. Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. Alaska, 1965. Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. Alaska, 1965. Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. Alaska, 1965. Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "The grandmother, fishing through the ice, howls with glee as she hauls in another tomcod." Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. Alaska, 1965. Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. Alaska, 1965. Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. Alaska, 1965. Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. Alaska, 1965. Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. Alaska, 1965. Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "86-year-old Christopher Tingook licks a knife clean of 'mutuk,' a delicacy cut from raw whale flake." Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. Alaska, 1965. Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. Alaska, 1965. Ralph Crane—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Image from the cover of the October 1, 1965, issue of LIFE. The picture originally ran in color, not black and white. 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