It was where I thought I had died and gone to heaven
When we visited 'The Land of the Midnight Sun' in nineteen ninety-eight
Because of it's clean air and pristine landscape where pioneering men
Panned for gold one hundred years earlier in this great State
Alaska, the forty-ninth State of the Union since nineteen fifty-eight
Home to 'Aukes', 'Aleuts', 'Haidas', 'Eskimos' and the 'Athabaskan' Indians
Indigenous brown, black and polar bears, moose, wolves and the humpback whales of Chatham Strait
Where a newcomer is called a "chee-chah-ko" by native 'Tlinigts' and 'Tsimshians'
We bought a souvenir 'Ulu' at the top of Mount Roberts in Juneau
At Skagway we panned for gold, saw totem poles and picnicked on local salmon
Visited Ketchikan, Mendenhall Glacier, saw eagles, a dog-sled and a modern-day 'Sourdough'
Alaska's flower is the wild 'Forget-Me-Not' and the State bird is the Willow Ptarmigan.
'Sourdough' was the name for a gold prospector. The USA purchased Alaska from Russia on March 30 1867 for $7.2 million dollars.
[For my 50th birthday Arthur booked a cruise in Alaska and nine days later we traveled to Israel]
Copyright: Pauline L. Stillman.