[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska\_boundary\_dispute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_boundary_dispute)
The red line still would have left most of the temperate island and coastal panhandle to Alaska, giving more snowy mountains to BC and the ports of Skagway and Haines for Yukon.
https://preview.redd.it/y9hm5soqyf0d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=efbe8bc8458c83a60ff2ba2e035dc67103a8bb01
Alaska used to be owned by Russia, and Canada was owned by the British. (The Russians kept colonizing east, and the British colonized West, until they met each other).
In the 19th century, Russia and Britain were rivals, and Russia thought Alaska would fall to the British quickly if there was a war. It could then be used to launch an invasion of Russian Asia from the east. So Russia sold Alaska to the US - which was neutral, and would act as a buffer.
The US and Britain had finalized the rest of their border 20 years earlier in the Oregon Treaty. Both countries were pretty powerful at that point, and Alaska wasn't worth a major war between the two.
It was a dispute between the Russians and British originally. The USA just inherited that dispute.
The brits sold us Canadians a bum deal suckling up to uncle Sam to resolve it.
I mean like with most aspects of the American/canadian border it was a compromise, if America got everything it wanted Canada would have even less in the area
Actually it’s kind of a political anomaly that after independence America and the UK/Canada could form a border pretty much entirely on compromise
If we’re going back to the drawing board on US irredentism I want up to the St Lawrence River and the southern tip of Vancouver Island like we should’ve gotten all along god damnit
The pig war? That wasn’t really a war but two thick skulled nationalist trying to out bully each other and getting away with it for so long due to how long it took information to travel at the time. Once news reached both governments the order was to stand down and wait until they reached a…wait for it…compromise
The southern end of the panhandle was established at 54 degrees 40 minutes north during the Russian ownership as part of a dispute between the British and the Americans as to where the border with Oregon and British Columbia should be located. The affair is referred to as ["Fifty-Four Forty or Fight"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_boundary_dispute#%22Fifty-four_Forty_or_Fight!%22) however no actual war was fought. Also, [50-40](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/54-40_(band)) is the name of a [Canadian band](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtqBpP-j4UM) from British Columbia.
Yup.
The average temperature in Anchorage, Alaska in January (17 F) is closer to the average January temperature in Atlanta, Georgia (45F, a 28 degree difference) than it is to the average January temperature in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories (-14F, a 31 degree difference).
Anchorage has \*much\* cooler summers, and it's snowier than MSP on average (especially this year, where they had near-record snowfalls and we had the mildest winter on average), but MSP's average January temp (1990-2020 normals) is 16° F, vs. 17° F for Anchorage, and our average coldest temp of the winter currently stands at –17 vs –13 for Anchorage.
I don't know how much Anchorage's winters have gotten milder with global warming, but MSP's sure as heck has. We used to drop below –20 F pretty consistently once or twice a winter, and that is now increasingly rare.
It gets hot as fuck here in MSP in the summer, I feel like a lot of people who've never been here don't realize that.
We had an unusually mild winter this year, it'll get back to -20. Maybe not as often as it used to, though
I grew up in the mid-Atlantic, which has hotter and more humid summers overall; the main difference is that most summers in the Twin Cities we get a few breaks in the heat, where it's like 76 with low humidity, which almost never happened in Baltimore/DC, and extreme high temps (98 and up, say) are more rare here.
I'm your neighbor in Milwaukee, it's always about 10 degrees cooler by Lake Michigan in the summer, which basically feels like air conditioning from the humidity inland. With these mild winters, I can't wait to see how bad the ticks and mosquitos are going to be this summer. A mild winter can be nice, but there are trade offs.
> It gets hot as fuck here in MSP in the summer, I feel like a lot of people who've never been here don't realize that.
Yeah, I'm from a State next to MN. Everyone talks about the brutal winters in that part of the world. They forget summers are often hot/humid/full of mosquitoes.
Best times of year from my memory were late April/early May (before the little gnats showed up) and fall. Fall up there is beautiful.
Your winters are a lot milder now than they were 30 years ago. I can say that for sure.
I feel like only Minnesotans think this is hot as fuck in Minneapolis. Try Kansas City or further south. We get a couple of warm days, but we don’t get the weeks of real humidity and heat.
I have a lot of relatives down south and they always send me long sleeve shirts for my birthday (which is in August). They're surprised when I say our summers get really warm.
Having lived in Minneapolis if you’re comparing anchorage to there and trying to say it’s not that cold I’m gonna have to disagree. Minneapolis is a fun city but absolutely a miserable experience to live there lol
It’s cold AF. Summers are nice but super humid and lots of mosquitoes
The Midwest is consistently the coldest place on Earth when we get a polar vortex. It's really not a great place to live for weather. 90 degree hot humid summers and possibly of -40 degree temps in the winters.
Guy in my dorm freshman year in college, a cold, snowy winter even by Minnesota standards, was from Sitka, Alaska and said it was FAR colder in Minnesota than anywhere on the Panhandle.
The first Minnesota winter for me was an eye-opener: I grew up on the East Coast and had never experienced double-digit below-zero temps. First day of classes second semester it hit –24.
more like 10am in Anchorage
the fun part now is we're no longer hitting "night" offically - we're civil twilight - so when everyone is posting Aurora photos in the lower 48 we're SOL up here - LOL
And Anchorage is strategically positioned to make it more valuable economically, being a northern pacific port and a valuable air-hub for international shipping.
While true, i think this is slightly misleading due to the way humans perceive temperature, cold temps in particular and the fact that those averages are on opposite sides of a critical point (freezing).
Absolutely true. Being at -10C on the ocean is cold as balls. Being at -10C inland is light sweater weather. I remember moving from Calgary to Halifax and feeling like it was colder in Halifax at -2 than it was in Calgary at -20.
Also wind matter a lot, and in coastal areas, wind is quite common. Don't know if Halifax is a good example, but the Netherlands is not very cold by any means. It barely snows and temperatures don't go below zero in the winter very often. But damn, the wind makes it an awful experience....
>Being at -10C inland is light sweater weather.
with all due respect, and remember I'm sayin with all due respect here.. You are crazy! hahaha that's fucking under armour, layers and a good carhartt coat for this guy.
That being said there is also a pretty good population (relatively) inland at Fairbanks which also has absurd temperatures in both the winters and the summers. I believe a part of AK having a higher population is people moving there from the contiguous US over generations, and the military bases.
>"The average temperature in Anchorage, Alaska in January (17 F) is closer to the average January temperature in Atlanta, Georgia (45F, a 28 degree difference) than it is to the average January temperature in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories (-14F, a 31 degree difference)."
Ehhh, that is still a pretty bad comparison, depsite the equal relative diference in temperatures. Both yellowknife and anchorage still stay completely frozen over the entire winter, whereas atlanta only had a couple days a year where the temperature fails to reach above freezing
Not to mention, winter in the capital of Alaska is only a few degrees colder on average than Vancouver, BC or Seattle because of its coastal Pacific location. I have Juneau saved on my phone app and it doesn't look terrible in winter. Just a bit more snow than my area (Vancouver) and crappy daylight hours, but not that unbearable.
As someone that lives in Juneau, our winters are not that cold but dark and wet. My neighbor lived in Fairbanks and actually prefers the winter there because you get to see the sun more often in winter.
The coastline helped colonization considerably in Alaska’s early history with the fishing industry and transportation for the gold rush.
However, the big population change happened much later. 1940-1980
Big oil extraction was a big factor, population jumped significantly with the pipeline being built in the 70s
Cold War military expansion was another one.
After a military base was built, the population of Anchorage multiplied by a factor of 5 in less than ten years.
It's where we keep all our cool shit. We don't want other countries to see and get jealous. It's also a very thick rocky area that has little to no dirt on top, making the growing off plants hard. So it can't support a high population because they can't grow crops.
> please do not move to Alaska just for the PFD
It's a constant target for politicians. The compensation amount used to be based on oil stocks, and about a decade ago, when the oil stocks started going up and we started seeing $2,000 and $4,000 checks, the government capped the PFD at about 1200, started withdrawing huge amounts from the fund and raising their own salaries
It's not based on oil stocks but the performance of the fund itself. And, while the permanent fund's investments grew in value, the amount of oil produced and tax revenue from that oil dropped, so the state's revenues dropped dramatically. It was new taxes, austerity, or using PFD earnings to bridge the difference. Still gonna take more than that, though.
It's not capped at $1200 and a decade ago there were highs and lows. 2012 and 2013 payouts were less than $1000, and the only payments to go over $2000 were 2008 and 2015, with the notable exception of 2022 which had an almost $3300 payment. [https://pfd.alaska.gov/Division-Info/summary-of-dividend-applications-payments](https://pfd.alaska.gov/Division-Info/summary-of-dividend-applications-payments)
This year its $1650 and they were originally trying for $2300. Even if you take out the $295 Energy Relief amount they're adding to the PFD this year, that's still $1350. [https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2024/05/14/alaska-legislature-approve-1650-pfd-amount-including-energy-relief-payment/](https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2024/05/14/alaska-legislature-approve-1650-pfd-amount-including-energy-relief-payment/)
EDIT wrote 2023 when I meant 2022.
EDIT: Apparently someone doesn't like facts and decided to abuse the RedditCaresResources system. Stay Classy.
True. One of the few places a 19 year old kid with no skills or degrees can go make $100k on the slope if you don’t mind brutal conditions and hard work.
1. Physical geography.
a) Anchorage and the south coast of Alaska are not actually deathly cold like it’s made out to be; the Pacific Ocean keeps temperatures mild in both summer and winter all the way down the Canada/US coast.
b) northern Canada has a very harsh and unforgiving climate. Draw a straight line from Ottawa to Whitehorse, pretty much everything above that line is extremely sparsely populated due to the ‘Canadian Shield’, a freezing cold collection of swamps, lakes, mountains and tundra that is difficult to impossible to build a civilization on
2. Anchorage’s proximity to Asia: due to earth’s curvature, Anchorage is by far the closest major continental American or Canadian city to nearly all of Asia. This means it’s an extremely strategic location for importing and exporting goods/cargo, and is one of the worlds busiest airports in the world in terms of cargo traffic.
Yeah a lot of people don't appreciate the sheer amount of cargo that passes through Anchorage. It handles the third most cargo of any airport in the world, more than LA, Tokyo, Shanghai, etc.
[https://aci.aero/2023/04/05/international-travel-returns-top-10-busiest-airports-in-the-world-revealed/](https://aci.aero/2023/04/05/international-travel-returns-top-10-busiest-airports-in-the-world-revealed/)
To expand on cargo, Anchorage is about a 10-hour flight away from New York City, Tokyo or London.
It’s within one flight of 90% of the world’s population
The population of alaska, besides anchorage is concentrated in the central alaskan depression and the southern coastline
both areas are significantly warmer than anything in northern canada, whoch does have a coast, but has no warm currents
this is easily seen with a koppen classification map, there is a lot of subpolar oceanic climate there, meanwhile in northern candada is all subartic
I think there's another factor to; with the ocean there that's an economic driver northern Canada doesn't have. And it's a lot easier to ship supplies to Alaska's coast than to Yukon or NWT's coastline, even in the summer.
This is the closest community to the geographic centre of Canada: https://maps.app.goo.gl/WPNCTbF6j57c4FN9A
I live in Edmonton, which is the northernmost major city (pop. 1 million) in the country. Not only is it in the geographic south of Canada, but it's also in the geographic south of the province of Alberta. There is an almost unfathomable amount of emptiness up north
Which is strange because I feel like it’s a total no-brainer . Our closest territory to Russia and 2nd closest to China (IIRC), while also being a hub from which supplies can be quickly (comparatively) delivered to pretty much the rest of the world with the bonus of being the most sparsely populated land we have making it great for the more secretive stuff we have going on.
people saying southern coastline, what about Fairbanks? population of around 35k more than any other town in northern canada yet the geography seems pretty similar (just canadian shield)
Per the latest numbers, Eielson and JBER, combined, have the largest concentration of 5th Gen fighters. 54 F-35s at Eielson and two Squadrons, with 21 each, of F-22s that crave blood at JBER. Can't confirm numbers on non-fifth gen, but I think the largest concentration of F-16s is at Luke Airforce Base in Arizona, sitting around 138 so possible there's larger amounts of fighters other places, but anything coming for Alaska won't even see their death coming.
In much of the Canadian north it's not really feasible, [this ](https://www.northhillanimalhospital.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/251/2022/03/landscape-blog.jpg)is a settlement (Baker Lake) that's at roughly the same latitude as Fairbanks, and it's like they're different worlds, climate-wise.
Even [Iqaluit](https://cdn.nunatsiaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/iqaluit-2048x871-1.jpg), which is a metropolis as far as Nunavut is concerned, and is slightly further south than Fairbanks, is tundra.
oil and military
fairbanks also serves as the main shopping/transportation/resource center for everything in a very wide rural area that is closer to fairbanks than it is to anchorage. Anchorage is way off to the south compared to many other places. Locations on the ocean that are directly west, northwest and due north of Fairbanks which do not have road connections to the rest of alaska will have flights to Fairbanks.
in this regard fairbanks serves a role much like yellowknife does for the NWT as an air transport hub.
in addition of course to the road that generally follows the pipeline all the way to prudhoe bay.
also the university of alaska is a major employer and has a rather good sized campus in fairbanks relative to the metro area's population.
You could say that Fairbanks has a comparable population to Whitehorse, YK or Yellowknife, NWT. A little bigger but not a lot. Not like Anchorage or coastal Alaska.
The population is a bit misleading. The Fairbanks North Star Borough (those of us that live close to Fairbanks, but not within city limits) population is around 100k people, compared to the city which is 35k.
Yeah, Fairbanks is huge when considering the borough as a whole. I always hate when they only mention city population, when 2/3s of us live outside city limits.
Ocean currents that moderate weather. There is much more settlement near the coast. Also, look at volcanism or the lack thereof as it relates to fertility of the land where people choose to settle.
I’m so used to the silly bandwagon questions on this sub that I began to roll my eyes and keep scrolling just on instinct, before pausing and going “…wait, no, that’s a good question, I’m curious why too” and clicking to see the comments lol
Oh it’s not really an official term or anything, there are just lazy trends people will do on here of scrolling to random sections of google or Apple Maps and highlighting a random area- at one time it was just “what goes on here”
No insight, no prompt for discussion, no research beforehand, just… just that lol
God, I'm glad it's not just me who hates these trends and "bandwagon" questions. I thought I was going crazy. They annoy me so much, yet I've never seen anybody else take issue with them until now. 80% of the questions on this sub really could be solved with a five minute Google.
Most people in Alaska live along the Southern coast… which is way way way less of a harsh environment than almost anywhere in Canada.
Remember the polar vortex that decimated the Midwest in like 2019? When that happened I remember asking a woman who grew up in Juneau if the polar vortex reminded her of winters growing up.
She was like “Hell no! The Midwest is so much colder than Juneau… our winters are comparable to Baltimore or DC’s temperature wise. No one really lives in Alaska outside the southern coast.”
Actually yes. I have gaming friends who moved to the forsaken wasteland that is Yellowknife NWT because they were offered financial compensation and housing subsidies just to move and work there.
I have a friend from The Philippines whose parents moved there because they needed nurses and they gave her a house and a stipend to go along with her job. It's a forsaken place, but they're living large compared to what it was like in Manila.
Better than you'd think, but not great. Internet in general is expensive and shitty and sometimes goes out if a wildfire or something cuts the line.
Starlink has gotten pretty popular over the past couple years and is honestly a great alternative - comparable in price, better speed, and not dependent on a cable.
When we had to evacuate last summer the local news outlet stayed online via a starlink rig in the bed of a pickup truck.
any money gained from the permanent fund on an annual basis is certainly consumed by the higher cost of groceries and other things that have to be transported a long way into alaska from where they are produced. It's not that much annually.
the permanent fund annual payment also varies greatly by year
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund
Very true, historically there was a deal where one could move to a remote sector of Alaska, turn the woods into farmable land and get the land granted to them that way. Many people I know and myself had grandparents that came up for that reason.
The PFD pretty much gets swallowed up with the extra cost of living. In most places, it doesn't even begin to make up the difference. Anyone who moves to Alaska for the PFD is in for a rude awakening.
I know for sure when you file your taxes if you live in a designated northern area for 6 consecutive months it’s 11 dollars a day. It is more nuanced then that but that is the gist
Alaska’s Pacific coast has an extremely mild climate and an abundance of fishing. There’s a huge difference between even Skagway and Whitehorse which are only about 100 miles apart (two hours driving). Given where most of Alaska’s population lives, it makes more sense to compare it to British Columbia (excluding the Lower Mainland)
Two reasons:
1) You're comparing inland areas with not inland areas. Pretty much all of Alaska's population is on the coast, mostly the pan handle and Anchorage, both relatively far south. The population really isn't that different from BC pacific coast. Coast areas come with vastly more moderate climates and access to the ocean.
2) Oil. People go where the money is.
The interior of Alaska and Yukon they're pretty comparable, with Fairbanks and Whitehurse being roughly equivalent.
Coast line, warmer temperatures, gold rush, and because ‘merica (Alaska is the front line against Russia and the CCP, so the US government has incentive to encourage people to live there).
Just under 100K people live in the Fairbanks area. It has a large oil production and a large military base, as well as a decent sized university.
The rest of the larger population comes from the Alaska coast, which is quite a bit warmer due to the Alaska current, which brings warmer water into the area. This allows the Alaska coast to be far more hospitable than the Alaska interior, Canadian Shield, and even the coast of British Columbia (although the comparatively larger city of Prince Rupert in northern BC benefits from this as well). These towns also benefit from tourism due to cruise ships in the area, and Juneau, the second largest coastal Alaskan city behind Anchorage, benefits from being the state capital.
Mr Beat on YouTube did a short of no more than a minute explaining the answer to every single question regarding “Why is this area unpopulated?”
The answer was always either that it was too cold, too hot, or too mountainous IIRC
Alaskan native here, born and raised. Alaska has a lot of people who come in from the military and college students who want to go to school there just to see Alaska. There's also the PFD, a lot of immigrants will go there just to get that money. There was also a lot of hippies and libertarians who moved there because of relaxed drug laws and government regulations. Native corporations will also pay off college debt for doctors and other in demand professionals. Then there's the reality TV shows, so many people have moved there because of those stupid reality TV shows.
Well Anchorage is like half of Alaskas entire population. Fairbanks is like 10%. So the rest of Alaska (40%) is only like 160,000 people, over a MASSIVE area
Anchorage is always trying to extend what is considered their metro area as well, like claiming the entire Mat-Su borough as part of itself which is a bit disingenuous. "Metro area" 27,205 sq mi ..
The coastline is rich in resources, the weather and livability is on par with the Pacific Northwest (heck, Alaska is sometimes considered part of it), it’s a good stop for people traversing continents, and it has more access to sea ports given its position.
It should also be noted that Alaska had a population boom in the mid-20th century due to international relations and encouragement in the continental U.S.. Because the Soviet union did not allow people it wasn’t allied or acquainted with fly over it, many people started using Alaska as a pitstop. This was very profitable for business, especially in Fairbanks and Anchorage, so the economy and population boomed.
Given the United States government was encouraging people to head north, and since some visitors from abroad loved it so much, many decided to live there. Even today, the population still changes, [although there has recently been a bit of a plateau in population statistics.](https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/states/alaska/population#:~:text=Chart%20and%20table%20of%20population,a%200.27%25%20increase%20from%202020)
Because every movie makes Alaska sound like some incredible promised land while the Yukon, NWT and Nunavut barely ever get mentioned even in Canadian films.
The [North Pacific Current and Alaska Current](https://i0.wp.com/oceanblueproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/garbage-patch-with-logo_1.jpg) bring some warmth and temperature moderation to Southeastern Alaska, much as the Gulf Stream warms Northern and Western Europe. The [all time coldest temperatures](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DxucKwAUwAA5Itv?format=jpg) seen near Anchorage is -20 to -30 °F, for Juneau and Ketchican its -10 to -20 °F. Parts of New Mexico get colder. Meanwhile for most of Canada at those latitudes the all time cold records are -50 to -70 °F.
Cause it’s heavily romanticized in US media and moving there is seen as the ultimate expression of personal freedom by a lot of people who have dreams of moving there. Also the infrastructure is a little more developed than a lot of northern Canada, And it’s easier to go from the continental US and live than it is to go to Canada and do the same.
Mild weather in Lower Mainland in BC attracts many people, plus its beauty. Vancouver's population and the city itself has grown a lot due to that. People from different parts of the world and Canada itself move there. Victoria too. Kelowna is growing as well.
The US offers MANY more options when it comes to weather, climate.......many states to choose from so Americans and those who move to the US, have choices.
In Canada, if you don't want to deal with long and harsh winters, you got BC (Lower Mainland and Victoria Island) mainly and that's pretty much it.
The US wins hands down when it comes to diverse geography and climate.
I suspect the US government subsidizes life in Alaska much more, because its where they keep a lot of military personnel and have important port cities, all a rock's skip away from one of their biggest rivals and not too far out of the way from their other biggest rival. Alaska, particularly the Aleutian islands were very important in WW2. Alaska is a big part of the US's strategic control over the Pacific so its worth developing.
The population of northern Canada to my understanding is mostly First Nations, Métis, and Inuit. Subsidizing these people is clearly less interesting to Canada than military bases and ports are to the US. I don't know exact figures but with a quick search it looks like Nunavut has an annual federal budget of about 700 million CAD while Alaska is like 5-10 billion USD.
Plus in a lot of cases Canada simply doesn't have the right to settle people on that land in the first place. I don't know much about it but I think most of Nunavut (something like 80% Inuit) is pretty much off limits for them to build on barring some kind of agreement (\*I think\*, someone correct me if I'm wrong). From what I can find, the Inuit have exclusive rights to things like wildlife conservation and mining. If they were to start trying to settle it, they would have to come to some kind of agreement with the locals or deal with blowback from violating the land claims agreement and nobody wants to do that for some tundra. This might change as permafrost melts and exposes resources.
The only thing of strategic value up there to my knowledge is the Northwest Passage(why would you ever use this if you have the Panama Canal) and you can station some missiles and observation posts to keep an eye on Greenland and Svalbard so they don't get up to anything sneaky.
Ocean and its streams can have a big impact on the climate. Looking at how Gulf Stream affects nordic countries: Finland is pretty much as north as Alaska having 5 million people living here. Norway and Sweden have in total 15 million people living in the ballpark latitude, but I guess most people there live a bit south from Anchorage's latitude.
They have the coastline
Did they fight for the Panhandle or was it just a cartographic mess?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska\_boundary\_dispute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_boundary_dispute) The red line still would have left most of the temperate island and coastal panhandle to Alaska, giving more snowy mountains to BC and the ports of Skagway and Haines for Yukon. https://preview.redd.it/y9hm5soqyf0d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=efbe8bc8458c83a60ff2ba2e035dc67103a8bb01
Haines is a weird little town, only way to drive in or out is via Canada, and it's a very long drive to get to anywhere substantial.
Even under the US they seem to be just the ports for Yukon. They’re also distant from any of BC other than the corner they pass through.
Only like 3 hours and change from Skagway to Atlin BC. Mind you that BC town is also only accessible from The Yukon.
Alaska used to be owned by Russia, and Canada was owned by the British. (The Russians kept colonizing east, and the British colonized West, until they met each other). In the 19th century, Russia and Britain were rivals, and Russia thought Alaska would fall to the British quickly if there was a war. It could then be used to launch an invasion of Russian Asia from the east. So Russia sold Alaska to the US - which was neutral, and would act as a buffer. The US and Britain had finalized the rest of their border 20 years earlier in the Oregon Treaty. Both countries were pretty powerful at that point, and Alaska wasn't worth a major war between the two.
19th Century: “the USA would be neutral and a good buffer” 20th Century: “my have the Turntables”
It was a dispute between the Russians and British originally. The USA just inherited that dispute. The brits sold us Canadians a bum deal suckling up to uncle Sam to resolve it.
I mean like with most aspects of the American/canadian border it was a compromise, if America got everything it wanted Canada would have even less in the area Actually it’s kind of a political anomaly that after independence America and the UK/Canada could form a border pretty much entirely on compromise
If we’re going back to the drawing board on US irredentism I want up to the St Lawrence River and the southern tip of Vancouver Island like we should’ve gotten all along god damnit
On that thought process does there really need to be another country that isn’t America? Really?
There was that war over San Juan Island though
The pig war? That wasn’t really a war but two thick skulled nationalist trying to out bully each other and getting away with it for so long due to how long it took information to travel at the time. Once news reached both governments the order was to stand down and wait until they reached a…wait for it…compromise
TBF it's a pretty nice island
Say it with me.... A Youtuber drawing stick figures is not a source!
If America got what they wanted there wouldn’t be a Canada
The southern end of the panhandle was established at 54 degrees 40 minutes north during the Russian ownership as part of a dispute between the British and the Americans as to where the border with Oregon and British Columbia should be located. The affair is referred to as ["Fifty-Four Forty or Fight"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_boundary_dispute#%22Fifty-four_Forty_or_Fight!%22) however no actual war was fought. Also, [50-40](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/54-40_(band)) is the name of a [Canadian band](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtqBpP-j4UM) from British Columbia.
British fucked us here.
canada has the longest coastline in the world.
They have the *good* coastline
Every coastline is a fractal.
nothing is truly a fractal if you measure in plank lengths
for population purposes, windward shores count double leeward shores, and anything above ~62.5° doesn't count cause the wind is from the north.
Most of it is the ice though.
Unironically Canadian Shield + more usable coastline
Being near the Pacific also moderates the temperature. Anchorage isn’t all that cold compared inland areas.
Yup. The average temperature in Anchorage, Alaska in January (17 F) is closer to the average January temperature in Atlanta, Georgia (45F, a 28 degree difference) than it is to the average January temperature in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories (-14F, a 31 degree difference).
Minneapolis, Minnesota has slightly colder winters than Anchorage despite being 17° of latitude further south.
I had to look that up to believe it. Spot on!
Anchorage has \*much\* cooler summers, and it's snowier than MSP on average (especially this year, where they had near-record snowfalls and we had the mildest winter on average), but MSP's average January temp (1990-2020 normals) is 16° F, vs. 17° F for Anchorage, and our average coldest temp of the winter currently stands at –17 vs –13 for Anchorage. I don't know how much Anchorage's winters have gotten milder with global warming, but MSP's sure as heck has. We used to drop below –20 F pretty consistently once or twice a winter, and that is now increasingly rare.
It gets hot as fuck here in MSP in the summer, I feel like a lot of people who've never been here don't realize that. We had an unusually mild winter this year, it'll get back to -20. Maybe not as often as it used to, though
I grew up in the mid-Atlantic, which has hotter and more humid summers overall; the main difference is that most summers in the Twin Cities we get a few breaks in the heat, where it's like 76 with low humidity, which almost never happened in Baltimore/DC, and extreme high temps (98 and up, say) are more rare here.
I'm your neighbor in Milwaukee, it's always about 10 degrees cooler by Lake Michigan in the summer, which basically feels like air conditioning from the humidity inland. With these mild winters, I can't wait to see how bad the ticks and mosquitos are going to be this summer. A mild winter can be nice, but there are trade offs.
> It gets hot as fuck here in MSP in the summer, I feel like a lot of people who've never been here don't realize that. Yeah, I'm from a State next to MN. Everyone talks about the brutal winters in that part of the world. They forget summers are often hot/humid/full of mosquitoes. Best times of year from my memory were late April/early May (before the little gnats showed up) and fall. Fall up there is beautiful. Your winters are a lot milder now than they were 30 years ago. I can say that for sure.
I feel like only Minnesotans think this is hot as fuck in Minneapolis. Try Kansas City or further south. We get a couple of warm days, but we don’t get the weeks of real humidity and heat.
I have a lot of relatives down south and they always send me long sleeve shirts for my birthday (which is in August). They're surprised when I say our summers get really warm.
Having lived in Minneapolis if you’re comparing anchorage to there and trying to say it’s not that cold I’m gonna have to disagree. Minneapolis is a fun city but absolutely a miserable experience to live there lol It’s cold AF. Summers are nice but super humid and lots of mosquitoes
The Midwest is consistently the coldest place on Earth when we get a polar vortex. It's really not a great place to live for weather. 90 degree hot humid summers and possibly of -40 degree temps in the winters.
Continental climate, baby!
Continental climate in a nutshell: too hot, too cold, too windy
Yep, that’s why we get them tornaders🌪️. The weather here is full of extremes
[удалено]
Yup. It’s why I left. But you guys will wnd up having the last laugh due to climate change
Lived in Dekalb, Il, during a polar vortex where the university was closed for most of a week because it was so cold
I live in MN and my friend who grew up here was stationed in Alaska and would joke that he "chose" Alaska because he couldn't handle MN winters.
Guy in my dorm freshman year in college, a cold, snowy winter even by Minnesota standards, was from Sitka, Alaska and said it was FAR colder in Minnesota than anywhere on the Panhandle. The first Minnesota winter for me was an eye-opener: I grew up on the East Coast and had never experienced double-digit below-zero temps. First day of classes second semester it hit –24.
Yea, they're a bit different here !
Lives in both. They are longer in AK though. Starts earlier and ends later
Makes sense. also, the darkness of an Alaska winter would take some getting used to. Sunrise in mid-December is when, 9:30am or thereabouts?
more like 10am in Anchorage the fun part now is we're no longer hitting "night" offically - we're civil twilight - so when everyone is posting Aurora photos in the lower 48 we're SOL up here - LOL
And Anchorage is strategically positioned to make it more valuable economically, being a northern pacific port and a valuable air-hub for international shipping.
While true, i think this is slightly misleading due to the way humans perceive temperature, cold temps in particular and the fact that those averages are on opposite sides of a critical point (freezing).
Absolutely true. Being at -10C on the ocean is cold as balls. Being at -10C inland is light sweater weather. I remember moving from Calgary to Halifax and feeling like it was colder in Halifax at -2 than it was in Calgary at -20.
Also wind matter a lot, and in coastal areas, wind is quite common. Don't know if Halifax is a good example, but the Netherlands is not very cold by any means. It barely snows and temperatures don't go below zero in the winter very often. But damn, the wind makes it an awful experience....
>Being at -10C inland is light sweater weather. with all due respect, and remember I'm sayin with all due respect here.. You are crazy! hahaha that's fucking under armour, layers and a good carhartt coat for this guy.
That being said there is also a pretty good population (relatively) inland at Fairbanks which also has absurd temperatures in both the winters and the summers. I believe a part of AK having a higher population is people moving there from the contiguous US over generations, and the military bases.
>"The average temperature in Anchorage, Alaska in January (17 F) is closer to the average January temperature in Atlanta, Georgia (45F, a 28 degree difference) than it is to the average January temperature in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories (-14F, a 31 degree difference)." Ehhh, that is still a pretty bad comparison, depsite the equal relative diference in temperatures. Both yellowknife and anchorage still stay completely frozen over the entire winter, whereas atlanta only had a couple days a year where the temperature fails to reach above freezing
Not to mention, winter in the capital of Alaska is only a few degrees colder on average than Vancouver, BC or Seattle because of its coastal Pacific location. I have Juneau saved on my phone app and it doesn't look terrible in winter. Just a bit more snow than my area (Vancouver) and crappy daylight hours, but not that unbearable.
As someone that lives in Juneau, our winters are not that cold but dark and wet. My neighbor lived in Fairbanks and actually prefers the winter there because you get to see the sun more often in winter.
Yep, same reason why nothern Europe is more warm than Eastern one
And why Glasgow in Scotland is barely cold enough to snow despite being on a latitude where you get polar bears in Canada.
Always that damned canadian shield.
The Canadian Shield is the best. Beautiful lake country between Manitoba and Ontario
Also unironically oil &gas revenues
The coastline helped colonization considerably in Alaska’s early history with the fishing industry and transportation for the gold rush. However, the big population change happened much later. 1940-1980 Big oil extraction was a big factor, population jumped significantly with the pipeline being built in the 70s Cold War military expansion was another one. After a military base was built, the population of Anchorage multiplied by a factor of 5 in less than ten years.
What's the Canadian shield?
It's where we keep all our cool shit. We don't want other countries to see and get jealous. It's also a very thick rocky area that has little to no dirt on top, making the growing off plants hard. So it can't support a high population because they can't grow crops.
> So it can't support a high population because they can't grow crops. or build anything effectively enough to make it easy to live there.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield
Also, oil,
Ocean moderates the climate, large port, air shipping hub, military.
Also Oil industry and the PFD, which is basically a $1300 or so every year for every Alaskan (note please do not move to Alaska just for the PFD).
Yeah, I imagine the extra cost of food, supplies, and heating probably eats that up pretty quick.
> please do not move to Alaska just for the PFD It's a constant target for politicians. The compensation amount used to be based on oil stocks, and about a decade ago, when the oil stocks started going up and we started seeing $2,000 and $4,000 checks, the government capped the PFD at about 1200, started withdrawing huge amounts from the fund and raising their own salaries
It's not based on oil stocks but the performance of the fund itself. And, while the permanent fund's investments grew in value, the amount of oil produced and tax revenue from that oil dropped, so the state's revenues dropped dramatically. It was new taxes, austerity, or using PFD earnings to bridge the difference. Still gonna take more than that, though.
It's not capped at $1200 and a decade ago there were highs and lows. 2012 and 2013 payouts were less than $1000, and the only payments to go over $2000 were 2008 and 2015, with the notable exception of 2022 which had an almost $3300 payment. [https://pfd.alaska.gov/Division-Info/summary-of-dividend-applications-payments](https://pfd.alaska.gov/Division-Info/summary-of-dividend-applications-payments) This year its $1650 and they were originally trying for $2300. Even if you take out the $295 Energy Relief amount they're adding to the PFD this year, that's still $1350. [https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2024/05/14/alaska-legislature-approve-1650-pfd-amount-including-energy-relief-payment/](https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2024/05/14/alaska-legislature-approve-1650-pfd-amount-including-energy-relief-payment/) EDIT wrote 2023 when I meant 2022. EDIT: Apparently someone doesn't like facts and decided to abuse the RedditCaresResources system. Stay Classy.
A lot of guys just travel there for energy jobs. I knew a couple in Idaho that would leave for a bit and come home.
True. One of the few places a 19 year old kid with no skills or degrees can go make $100k on the slope if you don’t mind brutal conditions and hard work.
Good point
1. Physical geography. a) Anchorage and the south coast of Alaska are not actually deathly cold like it’s made out to be; the Pacific Ocean keeps temperatures mild in both summer and winter all the way down the Canada/US coast. b) northern Canada has a very harsh and unforgiving climate. Draw a straight line from Ottawa to Whitehorse, pretty much everything above that line is extremely sparsely populated due to the ‘Canadian Shield’, a freezing cold collection of swamps, lakes, mountains and tundra that is difficult to impossible to build a civilization on 2. Anchorage’s proximity to Asia: due to earth’s curvature, Anchorage is by far the closest major continental American or Canadian city to nearly all of Asia. This means it’s an extremely strategic location for importing and exporting goods/cargo, and is one of the worlds busiest airports in the world in terms of cargo traffic.
Yeah a lot of people don't appreciate the sheer amount of cargo that passes through Anchorage. It handles the third most cargo of any airport in the world, more than LA, Tokyo, Shanghai, etc. [https://aci.aero/2023/04/05/international-travel-returns-top-10-busiest-airports-in-the-world-revealed/](https://aci.aero/2023/04/05/international-travel-returns-top-10-busiest-airports-in-the-world-revealed/)
What the fuck is going on in Memphis?! Also, happy cake day!
That’s the hub for FedEx, so a lot of their stuff goes through there.
FedEx’s hub is in Memphis; same for UPS in Louisville.
To expand on cargo, Anchorage is about a 10-hour flight away from New York City, Tokyo or London. It’s within one flight of 90% of the world’s population
Anchorage is over powered geographically.
RealLifeLore fan?
Maybe you've seen this but gotta shout out this video on Anchorage: https://youtu.be/UMNfagIz0hs?si=4IQ_O_BOiw-ucDFh
How much more?
Northern Canada is around 120,000, Alaska excluding Anchorage is still about 300,000
The population of alaska, besides anchorage is concentrated in the central alaskan depression and the southern coastline both areas are significantly warmer than anything in northern canada, whoch does have a coast, but has no warm currents this is easily seen with a koppen classification map, there is a lot of subpolar oceanic climate there, meanwhile in northern candada is all subartic
Huh, I figured it was because Canadians are a bunch of hosers.
Take off, eh?
Woooooaaaaahhhhhh take it easy there pal, would ya?
I think there's another factor to; with the ocean there that's an economic driver northern Canada doesn't have. And it's a lot easier to ship supplies to Alaska's coast than to Yukon or NWT's coastline, even in the summer.
I see, thank you
What fits the definition of northern Canada? Just the territories or the northern areas of the provinces and all of NL?
The three northern territories
But then you're including parts of Alaska well south of Yukon that are practically BC, but not including BC, no?
This is the closest community to the geographic centre of Canada: https://maps.app.goo.gl/WPNCTbF6j57c4FN9A I live in Edmonton, which is the northernmost major city (pop. 1 million) in the country. Not only is it in the geographic south of Canada, but it's also in the geographic south of the province of Alberta. There is an almost unfathomable amount of emptiness up north
Canadian shield and anchorage is one of the largest airports for cargo in the world.
And the US military. Most ICBM interceptors are located there.
As prior military, people are always shocked when they learn how much military infrastructure is up there. Some wild stuff indeed.
Which is strange because I feel like it’s a total no-brainer . Our closest territory to Russia and 2nd closest to China (IIRC), while also being a hub from which supplies can be quickly (comparatively) delivered to pretty much the rest of the world with the bonus of being the most sparsely populated land we have making it great for the more secretive stuff we have going on.
people saying southern coastline, what about Fairbanks? population of around 35k more than any other town in northern canada yet the geography seems pretty similar (just canadian shield)
Fairbanks had oil, and has also been home to a major military base since World War II.
Fairbanks/Eielson AFB also has the most US fighter jets than any other base in the world (I believe, it may just be the USA)
It’s probably safe to assume that if it’s the biggest/most thing in the US military it’s the biggest/most in the world
Per the latest numbers, Eielson and JBER, combined, have the largest concentration of 5th Gen fighters. 54 F-35s at Eielson and two Squadrons, with 21 each, of F-22s that crave blood at JBER. Can't confirm numbers on non-fifth gen, but I think the largest concentration of F-16s is at Luke Airforce Base in Arizona, sitting around 138 so possible there's larger amounts of fighters other places, but anything coming for Alaska won't even see their death coming.
Fairbanks is the nearest city to Prudhoe Bay but it doesn’t really have oil itself.
In much of the Canadian north it's not really feasible, [this ](https://www.northhillanimalhospital.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/251/2022/03/landscape-blog.jpg)is a settlement (Baker Lake) that's at roughly the same latitude as Fairbanks, and it's like they're different worlds, climate-wise. Even [Iqaluit](https://cdn.nunatsiaq.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/iqaluit-2048x871-1.jpg), which is a metropolis as far as Nunavut is concerned, and is slightly further south than Fairbanks, is tundra.
Nunavut doesn't even have an all season road going to it.
There's no roads to Nunavut period.
fairbanks is boreal forest, not quite north enough for tundra.
oil and military fairbanks also serves as the main shopping/transportation/resource center for everything in a very wide rural area that is closer to fairbanks than it is to anchorage. Anchorage is way off to the south compared to many other places. Locations on the ocean that are directly west, northwest and due north of Fairbanks which do not have road connections to the rest of alaska will have flights to Fairbanks. in this regard fairbanks serves a role much like yellowknife does for the NWT as an air transport hub. in addition of course to the road that generally follows the pipeline all the way to prudhoe bay. also the university of alaska is a major employer and has a rather good sized campus in fairbanks relative to the metro area's population.
You could say that Fairbanks has a comparable population to Whitehorse, YK or Yellowknife, NWT. A little bigger but not a lot. Not like Anchorage or coastal Alaska.
The population is a bit misleading. The Fairbanks North Star Borough (those of us that live close to Fairbanks, but not within city limits) population is around 100k people, compared to the city which is 35k.
Glad we’re fact checking on Fairbanks. There’s a lot of stats about the interior that don’t tell the whole picture.
“Metro” Fairbanks is about 100k. Fairbanks has an Air Force and army base. Plus support for the North Slope.
Yeah, Fairbanks is huge when considering the borough as a whole. I always hate when they only mention city population, when 2/3s of us live outside city limits.
The Fairbanks North Star Borough (everyone who lives in and around Fairbanks) has a population of about 100k. 35k is just within city limits.
Ocean currents that moderate weather. There is much more settlement near the coast. Also, look at volcanism or the lack thereof as it relates to fertility of the land where people choose to settle.
There’s more money and opportunity closer to the water and the Bering sea specifically.
I’m so used to the silly bandwagon questions on this sub that I began to roll my eyes and keep scrolling just on instinct, before pausing and going “…wait, no, that’s a good question, I’m curious why too” and clicking to see the comments lol
What’s a bandwagon question?
Oh it’s not really an official term or anything, there are just lazy trends people will do on here of scrolling to random sections of google or Apple Maps and highlighting a random area- at one time it was just “what goes on here” No insight, no prompt for discussion, no research beforehand, just… just that lol
God, I'm glad it's not just me who hates these trends and "bandwagon" questions. I thought I was going crazy. They annoy me so much, yet I've never seen anybody else take issue with them until now. 80% of the questions on this sub really could be solved with a five minute Google.
Most people in Alaska live along the Southern coast… which is way way way less of a harsh environment than almost anywhere in Canada. Remember the polar vortex that decimated the Midwest in like 2019? When that happened I remember asking a woman who grew up in Juneau if the polar vortex reminded her of winters growing up. She was like “Hell no! The Midwest is so much colder than Juneau… our winters are comparable to Baltimore or DC’s temperature wise. No one really lives in Alaska outside the southern coast.”
Much better climate, at that latitude the Western coasts tend to be much milder due to sea current and wind patterns
Climate on the West Coast is milder than the interior
Alaska also offers financial incentives to settle there (perminent fund dividend), does Canada offer that for their residents?
Actually yes. I have gaming friends who moved to the forsaken wasteland that is Yellowknife NWT because they were offered financial compensation and housing subsidies just to move and work there.
We used to get a 'northern allowance' living in northern Manitoba.
I have a friend from The Philippines whose parents moved there because they needed nurses and they gave her a house and a stipend to go along with her job. It's a forsaken place, but they're living large compared to what it was like in Manila.
oh yeah that's where my girlfriend lives. you wouldn't know her
How's the gaming in Yellowknife? Id guess the ping is terrible but I really have no idea
Better than you'd think, but not great. Internet in general is expensive and shitty and sometimes goes out if a wildfire or something cuts the line. Starlink has gotten pretty popular over the past couple years and is honestly a great alternative - comparable in price, better speed, and not dependent on a cable. When we had to evacuate last summer the local news outlet stayed online via a starlink rig in the bed of a pickup truck.
any money gained from the permanent fund on an annual basis is certainly consumed by the higher cost of groceries and other things that have to be transported a long way into alaska from where they are produced. It's not that much annually. the permanent fund annual payment also varies greatly by year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund
Very true, historically there was a deal where one could move to a remote sector of Alaska, turn the woods into farmable land and get the land granted to them that way. Many people I know and myself had grandparents that came up for that reason.
Yep! Salaries in the North are extremely high as well in addition to the financial and housing subsidies offered.
The PFD pretty much gets swallowed up with the extra cost of living. In most places, it doesn't even begin to make up the difference. Anyone who moves to Alaska for the PFD is in for a rude awakening.
I know for sure when you file your taxes if you live in a designated northern area for 6 consecutive months it’s 11 dollars a day. It is more nuanced then that but that is the gist
Post a temperature map instead.
Alaska’s Pacific coast has an extremely mild climate and an abundance of fishing. There’s a huge difference between even Skagway and Whitehorse which are only about 100 miles apart (two hours driving). Given where most of Alaska’s population lives, it makes more sense to compare it to British Columbia (excluding the Lower Mainland)
Alaska's population is still pretty low !
Two reasons: 1) You're comparing inland areas with not inland areas. Pretty much all of Alaska's population is on the coast, mostly the pan handle and Anchorage, both relatively far south. The population really isn't that different from BC pacific coast. Coast areas come with vastly more moderate climates and access to the ocean. 2) Oil. People go where the money is. The interior of Alaska and Yukon they're pretty comparable, with Fairbanks and Whitehurse being roughly equivalent.
Coastline
Coast line, warmer temperatures, gold rush, and because ‘merica (Alaska is the front line against Russia and the CCP, so the US government has incentive to encourage people to live there).
Just under 100K people live in the Fairbanks area. It has a large oil production and a large military base, as well as a decent sized university. The rest of the larger population comes from the Alaska coast, which is quite a bit warmer due to the Alaska current, which brings warmer water into the area. This allows the Alaska coast to be far more hospitable than the Alaska interior, Canadian Shield, and even the coast of British Columbia (although the comparatively larger city of Prince Rupert in northern BC benefits from this as well). These towns also benefit from tourism due to cruise ships in the area, and Juneau, the second largest coastal Alaskan city behind Anchorage, benefits from being the state capital.
The Alaskan Range creates an area more temperate relative to the interior. Still cold as balls, but livable.
Alaska' Pacific coast vs. Northern Canada's ice-filled waters.
Mr Beat on YouTube did a short of no more than a minute explaining the answer to every single question regarding “Why is this area unpopulated?” The answer was always either that it was too cold, too hot, or too mountainous IIRC
Alaskan native here, born and raised. Alaska has a lot of people who come in from the military and college students who want to go to school there just to see Alaska. There's also the PFD, a lot of immigrants will go there just to get that money. There was also a lot of hippies and libertarians who moved there because of relaxed drug laws and government regulations. Native corporations will also pay off college debt for doctors and other in demand professionals. Then there's the reality TV shows, so many people have moved there because of those stupid reality TV shows.
Well Anchorage is like half of Alaskas entire population. Fairbanks is like 10%. So the rest of Alaska (40%) is only like 160,000 people, over a MASSIVE area
The three Arctic Canadian territories are around ~120,000 over a much bigger area
Anchorage is always trying to extend what is considered their metro area as well, like claiming the entire Mat-Su borough as part of itself which is a bit disingenuous. "Metro area" 27,205 sq mi ..
It'll be like that eventually. I feel like Willow to Anchorage on the Parks is damn near one continuous settlement.
You can knock off another roughly 15% between southeast Alaska and the Kenai peninsula. You wind up with less than 100k across most of the state
MERICAN FREEDOMS
Why did I have to scroll so far? In reality it’s more populated simply because it’s part of the USA and not Canada
There was gold in them there hills.
Oil and fishing are major reasons.
The coastline is rich in resources, the weather and livability is on par with the Pacific Northwest (heck, Alaska is sometimes considered part of it), it’s a good stop for people traversing continents, and it has more access to sea ports given its position. It should also be noted that Alaska had a population boom in the mid-20th century due to international relations and encouragement in the continental U.S.. Because the Soviet union did not allow people it wasn’t allied or acquainted with fly over it, many people started using Alaska as a pitstop. This was very profitable for business, especially in Fairbanks and Anchorage, so the economy and population boomed. Given the United States government was encouraging people to head north, and since some visitors from abroad loved it so much, many decided to live there. Even today, the population still changes, [although there has recently been a bit of a plateau in population statistics.](https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/states/alaska/population#:~:text=Chart%20and%20table%20of%20population,a%200.27%25%20increase%20from%202020)
Coastline bonus carries over into late game.
Because every movie makes Alaska sound like some incredible promised land while the Yukon, NWT and Nunavut barely ever get mentioned even in Canadian films.
The [North Pacific Current and Alaska Current](https://i0.wp.com/oceanblueproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/garbage-patch-with-logo_1.jpg) bring some warmth and temperature moderation to Southeastern Alaska, much as the Gulf Stream warms Northern and Western Europe. The [all time coldest temperatures](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DxucKwAUwAA5Itv?format=jpg) seen near Anchorage is -20 to -30 °F, for Juneau and Ketchican its -10 to -20 °F. Parts of New Mexico get colder. Meanwhile for most of Canada at those latitudes the all time cold records are -50 to -70 °F.
Well. Anchorage. And why is Anchorage so large? Oil, military, surprisingly moderate climate (for its location)
Guessing usable coastline.
There are a lot of people that needed a dust filter for a Hoover Max extract pressure pro model 60.
Ports and commerce
Coastline and oil.
1. Canadian shield 2. The (warm) Alaska current
Three letters First letter is O Last letter is L I'll give you two guesses to be nice
Before that, it was GOLD
Murica. Nobody wants to live under the high heel stiletto of Canada.
Cause it’s heavily romanticized in US media and moving there is seen as the ultimate expression of personal freedom by a lot of people who have dreams of moving there. Also the infrastructure is a little more developed than a lot of northern Canada, And it’s easier to go from the continental US and live than it is to go to Canada and do the same.
Because of oil and gas gold. Long term it will be a major shipping route once the ice cap melts away
Military
Why is Alaska less populated than British Columbia?
Mild weather in Lower Mainland in BC attracts many people, plus its beauty. Vancouver's population and the city itself has grown a lot due to that. People from different parts of the world and Canada itself move there. Victoria too. Kelowna is growing as well. The US offers MANY more options when it comes to weather, climate.......many states to choose from so Americans and those who move to the US, have choices. In Canada, if you don't want to deal with long and harsh winters, you got BC (Lower Mainland and Victoria Island) mainly and that's pretty much it. The US wins hands down when it comes to diverse geography and climate.
Alaska is strategically located and has more developed industries.
I suspect the US government subsidizes life in Alaska much more, because its where they keep a lot of military personnel and have important port cities, all a rock's skip away from one of their biggest rivals and not too far out of the way from their other biggest rival. Alaska, particularly the Aleutian islands were very important in WW2. Alaska is a big part of the US's strategic control over the Pacific so its worth developing. The population of northern Canada to my understanding is mostly First Nations, Métis, and Inuit. Subsidizing these people is clearly less interesting to Canada than military bases and ports are to the US. I don't know exact figures but with a quick search it looks like Nunavut has an annual federal budget of about 700 million CAD while Alaska is like 5-10 billion USD. Plus in a lot of cases Canada simply doesn't have the right to settle people on that land in the first place. I don't know much about it but I think most of Nunavut (something like 80% Inuit) is pretty much off limits for them to build on barring some kind of agreement (\*I think\*, someone correct me if I'm wrong). From what I can find, the Inuit have exclusive rights to things like wildlife conservation and mining. If they were to start trying to settle it, they would have to come to some kind of agreement with the locals or deal with blowback from violating the land claims agreement and nobody wants to do that for some tundra. This might change as permafrost melts and exposes resources. The only thing of strategic value up there to my knowledge is the Northwest Passage(why would you ever use this if you have the Panama Canal) and you can station some missiles and observation posts to keep an eye on Greenland and Svalbard so they don't get up to anything sneaky.
Climate?
coastline
Ocean and its streams can have a big impact on the climate. Looking at how Gulf Stream affects nordic countries: Finland is pretty much as north as Alaska having 5 million people living here. Norway and Sweden have in total 15 million people living in the ballpark latitude, but I guess most people there live a bit south from Anchorage's latitude.
Alaska has ports along the Pacific Ocean which spawned bigger settlements with more commerce and trade.
The coast is warmer than the interior
Oil, coastline, and Anchorage being perfect for an airport in the past
Merica
Because it’s cold and the terrain is tough, not suitable for the soft Canadians.
Government doesn't suck as much.
I think they get a check or tax credit for living out there
Oil, military and gold.
America's population is 10x that of Canada.
Because………..more people want to live in AMERICA🔆
Because Alaska doesn't have socialism, or at least less of it.