Famous Citizens:

Benny Benson
As a 13 year old in 1926, Benny designed the territorial flag for Alaska. Benny was born in Chignik, Alaska and grew up in Unalaska, Alaska. He won the flag contest for students in grades 7 through 12 from across the territory. The legislature later voted that Benny’s flag was to be retained after Alaska achieved statehood in 1959.

 

 

Vitus Bering
Though not an Alaskan by birth, Danish explorer Vitus Bering had a great impact on the future of Alaska as Europeans learned about it. Bering acted as an explorer for Russia in the early 1700’s, sailing the ocean east of Siberia, looking for passage from Russia to North America. He discovered that the Kamchatka Peninsula and North America were not connected by land. He eventually landed in Alaska in 1741, claiming it for Russia. Traveling with him was naturalist George Stellar who documented many of the animal species of Alaska’s waterways and skies. The Bering Sea and Strait are named for the explorer who perished on an island between Alaska and Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula not long after he finally landed in Alaska. His grave was discovered there in 1991.

 

 

Ernest Gruening
Gruening was Alaska’s territorial governor (1935-1953) and a territorial senator (1956-58) of Alaska before it reached statehood, and he became U.S. senator from Alaska from 1958-68. He lobbied strongly in Washington for the Alaska territory to become a state, not a “colony.” As territorial governor during World War II, he organized Alaskan natives into a territorial guard to watch for Japanese invasion along the Bering Sea. Alaska is actually quite close to Japan. During the 1960s, as U.S. senator, Gruening was a vocal in his anti-Vietnam war beliefs.

 

 

Elizabeth Peratrovich
Peratrovich was a Tlingit native leader who fought for equal rights for natives in Alaska. She spoke to the territorial legislature in 1945 in favor of the bill that outlawed discrimination against natives, beginning a new era in race relations in Alaska.

 

 

Joe Reddington, Jr.
Joe Reddington was the Father of The Last Great Race on Earth, the Iditarod, run by dog sleds and mushers across Alaska every March since 1973. The race was started to commemorate the Serum Run of 1925 when diphtheria serum was rushed by dog sled over the 1000-mile Iditarod trail from Anchorage to Nome to save lives from the disease.

Reddington was a talented musher and race promoter, convincing people to sponsor the event and contribute prize money. He and his wife Vi offered a piece of their own land as a prize in one of the early races.

Today people travel from around the world to serve as check-point help, veterinarians, and trail volunteers for the race Joe Reddington, Jr. started. It is a community event for all of Alaska. Alaskan children may be more likely to know Iditarod statistics and mushers than NBA or NFL players. Everyone knows or follows a favorite musher. If you live in Alaska, you understand the conditions the dogs and mushers survive to complete the race. That same determination is part of Alaska’s culture.

 

 

Jefferson C. (“Soapy”) Smith
Famous (or infamous) outlaw and con-man who left Colorado on unfriendly terms with the law and showed up in Skagway, Alaska at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897. He was quick to organize his own gang of brutes to fleece the miners for as much as he could in this lawless gold-rush town. Along with many other money-making schemes, Soapy convinced the adventurous miners that he was telegraphing their messages to families back home in California or Seattle from his Dominion Telegraph Service. He then shared “replies” from home requesting money. He was quite willing to “wire” the money home (and into his own pockets) for the miners. Soapy took in quite a bit of cash as no one realized that the “wires” for his “telegraph” went a few feet out into the water and stopped. On July 8, 1898, a “committee” of 101 angry men finally came after Soapy, furious that his gang had taken over $2000 from one miner. The town surveyor, Frank Reid, faced a drunken Soapy in a gun-duel at the docks, and Soapy was killed instantly. Reid died a few days later. No one celebrates Reid much anymore, but there is an annual remembrance of Soapy every year on July 8 in Skagway. To many he is as famous as Butch Cassidy or Billy the Kid.

 

 

Molly Hootch and Anna Tibeluk
These young women were groundbreakers in changing educational opportunities for Alaskan natives who were unable to go to high school without leaving home for nine months of the year prior to 1976. Until that time, none of the villages had school beyond eighth grade. Anna and Molly were students named as plaintiffs in the case that won 126 high schools in native villages across Alaska. Alaskan culture encourages its citizens, both native and non-native, to speak their minds and become activists.