A Trip to Alaska Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ohio

William McKinley was the 25th President of the United States. He served from 1897 until his death in 1901, when he succumbed to an assassin's bullet. The mountain was given the name McKinley by gold miners from the U.S., possibly because another movement was afoot to name the mountain after William Jennings Bryan, a proponent of a monetary silver standard. McKinley was strongly in favor of the gold standard, so of course gold miners approved of him. At the time they named the mountain, McKinley had been nominated for the Presidency but not yet elected.

Alaskans have long wanted to remove the name McKinley and reinstate formally the original name Denali. The matter has been brought up in Congress several times, but politicians from Ohio have succeeded in preventing the change from being approved. The national park in which the mountain is located, once known as McKinley National Park, was subsumed into the larger Denali National Park by President Carter, but proponents of renaming the mountain were not placated by that change, and the movement to rename the peak continues as of mid-2015.

Answer: Salmon

There are five kinds of salmon that run upstream to mate in the spring and summer months: chum, sockeye, king, silver and pink. Of these, chum are considered least desirable and are often fed to animals. King salmon is generally the most prized. The different types run at different times in the warmer months.

Answer: Compressed ice absorbs all colors in light but blue, which is reflected.

When snow falls on a glacier, it doesn't melt. As snow piles up, it gets compressed into ice crystals, which become very dense over time. The crystals absorb most of the light spectrum, except for a deep aqua blue that shows up here and there within the field of ice.

Although there are only 600 or so named glaciers in Alaska, according to the Alaska Almanac, there may be as many as 100,000 glaciers within the state's borders.

Answer: Breaching

It is not known for sure why whales breach-some of the most common explanations for the behavior have to do with respiration, establishment of dominance in a pod, or warning off adversaries. It is also thought that the action may rid the whale of parasites, or that they're just having fun!

Answer: Nearly every resident lives in a former military barracks.

The town of Whittier was built essentially as an army installation at the start of World War II. It initially included a port and a railroad terminus that connected to Anchorage; to complete the rail line, a 2.5 mile-long tunnel (the longest in North America) was blasted through Mount Maynard just west of town.

The line, completed in 1943, was needed to deliver military supplies to other parts of Alaska. Just after the war, construction began on two buildings-one, the Buckner building, contained barracks, meal facilities, medical services and administrative services for the military personnel.

The other, the Hodge building, provided additional housing for military families and soldiers. The latter has since become a condominium renamed as Begich Towers, that houses nearly everyone who lives in Whittier.

Answer: Northwest

The city of Nome lies on the Bering Strait about 540 miles as the crow flies northwest of Anchorage. Considerably smaller than Anchorage, with a population of between 3,000 and 4,000 since the 2010 census, Nome at the turn of the 20th century was the largest city in Alaska with a population of about 20,000.

This was due entirely to Alaska's gold rush - when it ended, the population of the area dwindled, although gold mining and dredging is still and industry there. Today, Nome remains a regional center with a hospital and several schools, as well as two small airports.

Answer: It can only be reached by taking a plane or a boat.

While it is possible to reach Juneau by car, for a portion of the journey the car must be on a ferryboat. As of 2010, Juneau's population was approximately 31,000, the sixth smallest in the US by population-but the largest in terms of area. The capitol building is constructed of concrete. Prior to purchase by the US, nearby Sitka was the capital of Alaska.

Answer: Moose

The moose is the largest member of the deer family, which also includes caribou. The largest members of the bear family are the polar bear and the Kodiak brown bear (also known as the Alaskan grizzly bear). The largest crab in the world is the Japanese spider crab, which can have a leg span as wide as 12 feet! The largest type of crab in Alaska is the king crab, some of which have a leg span of five feet.

Answer: Extended hours of sunlight during summer.

Of course, the use of good soils and fertilizers contributes to the health and growth of crops, but it is generally agreed by growers ( and supported by data from the Alaskan Agricultural Extension Service) that the long hours of sunlight are the primary factor in the growth of the massive vegetables Alaska produces in the summer.

Answer: A magnitude 9.2 earthquake heavily damaged much of southern Alaska.

The earthquake of 1964 devastated many communities across southern Alaska, and caused a large tsunami that inflicted catastrophic damage and took many lives on coastal communities. It was the second most violent earthquake ever recorded. Later observations would reveal that the Pacific Plate moved approximately nine meters farther under the North American Plate as a result of the quake, and an island, Latouche Island, moved nearly 18 meters to the southeast!

The resulting tsunami was also the second-largest up to that time. There was greater loss of life due to the tsunami than to the earthquake itself.

Alaska continues to be the state with the most frequent earthquakes-the U.S. Department of Seismology has estimated that as many as 24,000 can occur in a year! Of course, most are small enough to either not be perceived by anyone without a seismograph. The southern coastal areas of Alaska are a very active part of the Pacific Ring of Fire.