Walrus tusks, caribou carcasses and wine-drinking bears: Incredible colorized images of Alaska in the 1900s showcase settlers on the last frontier, 50 years before it became a US state
- A trove of newly colorized images taken by the explorer Frank Carpenter in the 1900s reveals the early life of settlers in Alaska – over a half-century before the territory officially became a US state in 1959
- One image depicts a young girl feeding a doughnut to her pet bear, another shows hunters standing in front of a rack of caribou carcasses, today there are 750,00 caribou left in Alaska
- Alaska is the largest state in the union with 663,268 square miles – it is equal in size to approximately one-fifth of the rest of the United States and also has the lowest population density in the country
- Known as ‘The Last Frontier’ – much of Alaska remains untouched and uninhabited with more than 99% of it still unexplored by man
By Tate Delloye For Dailymail.com
Published: 17:41 EDT, 4 June 2021
A trove of newly colorized showcase early pioneers grappling with the lawless nature of Alaska in the early 1900s – long before it was officially incorporated as a US state in 1959. Taken by the explorer Frank Carpenter, the photographs depict hunters posing in front of a rack of caribou carcasses, extinct mastodon tusks, and a young girl feeding a doughnut to her pet bear. Covering 663,268 square miles, Alaska is the largest state in the union with much of it remaining unexplored to this day. The state—nicknamed the Last Frontier for its abundance of uninhabited land—is home to 20 national parks, 100,000 glaciers, three million lakes and more coastline than all the other US states combined. Now, more than a hundred years later, little has changed and Alaska remains just as mysterious and inviting as ever.
