"Eight stars of
Alaska's flag. May it mean to you
The , the evening sky,
The mountain lakes, and the nearby;
The gold of the early ,
The of the hills and streams;
The brilliant stars in the ,
The the "Dipper," and, shining high,
The great with its steady light,
O'er land and sea a .
Alaska's flag to Alaskans dear,
The simple flag of a ."
Your Options
[blue of the sea][northern sky]["Bear,"][flow'rs][last frontier][precious gold][gold on a field of blue][sourdough's dreams][beacon bright][North Star]
Click or drag the options above to the spaces in the text.
Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
Answer:
To understand this, one of the shortest of the state songs, you need to be able to picture the state flag. It is a field of dark blue with the big dipper, Ursa Major, on the left and the North Star at the top right. The flag was selected in a design contest in the early 1900s and the winner was a young 13-year-old boy who was half Native and half Russian. He said that the North Star represented the future of Alaska, the big dipper, the bear, was strength and the blue of the background was both the colour of the night sky as well as the Alaskan flower, the forget-me-not.
This striking imagery inspired an employee of the Department of Education for Alaska and she wrote a poem about this flag design. As she just happened to be the Territorial Commissioner for Education, her poem was published and circulated throughout the Alaskan school system on the front cover of the yearly school bulletin.
One of the many people who read this poem was the wife of a commander of an armed forces barracks. After she and her husband had been transferred to the lower 48, she used the poem to remember Alaska and so wrote music to the poem. A few years later on a trip back to Alaska, she played the music in a small concert for the original author of the poem.
From there, it grew in popularity until eventually when Alaska became a state in 1959 it was adopted as the official state song.
As one of the shorter state songs, there have been proposals to add a second verse, but all have failed to pass the legislature.
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