Alaskan History Magazine
Contributed by Helen Hegener, Northern Light Media
The September-October 2025 issue of Alaskan History Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 5, features a wide variety of articles, beginning with the cover story about Alaska’s premier painter, Sydney Laurence, whose artwork can be found in museums, businesses and homes all across Alaska and far beyond. Another feature article in this issue shares the social and political history behind the New Deal, which brought the Matanuska Colony Project to Palmer in 1935. The article explains how many of the ideas of the planners in Washington were out of line with the hard facts and conditions in Alaska, and why, contrary to popular belief, the government’s resettlement program was never intended to produce a community of self-sufficient farmers.
Other articles in this issue include the writing of pioneer Emily Craig Romig, wife of the famed ‘dog-team doctor,’ Joseph H. Romig, about her adventures in Nome during the Gold Rush. Community profiles ‘Ruby: Gem of the Yukon’ and ‘The Naming of Cordova’ both describe the histories of their respective places, while an article reprinted from a 1919 issue of “The Pathfinder” introduces two of the earliest Anchorage pioneers, J.D. ‘Bud’ and Daisy Whitney, who homesteaded on Ship Creek. And the last article in this issue explains the background of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in their often-misguided attempts “to enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of … Alaska Natives.”
Alaskan History Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 5, 64 pages, 6″ x 9″ B/W format, $12.00 postage paid, $40.00 for a one year, six issue subscription.
alaskanhistorymagazine.com
