Arctic Alaska Trivia Quiz

Answer: Deadhorse

The highway was named after James Dalton, an Alaskan engineer who was important in the building of the Distant Early Warning Line and oil exploration. Deadhorse, in North Slope Borough on Prudhoe Bay, is unincorporated, but it has an airport and general store. It also has a few places for tourists to stay, though it mainly services the companies that run the oil fields in Prudhoe Bay.

Answer: Barrow

Barrow and nearby Point Barrow are named after Sir John Barrow. Barrow is the seat of North Slope Borough and is located in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The native name for the area means 'place where snowy owls are hunted'. The Inupiat Eskimo have lived in the area for over a thousand years, and live by hunting and fishing.

Answer: Gates of the Arctic

It was declared a national park in 1980, but before that it had been protected as a U.S. National Monument for two years. Part of the Brooks Range makes up the majority of the park, which has no established visitor facilities or roads, but there is a small visitor center on the Dalton Highway at Coldfoot, which is just a few miles away.

The wilderness activist, Bob Marshall, is responsible for the park's name. In 1929, while exploring the Koyukuk River, he encountered an area with a mountain on either side of the river and dubbed the place the 'Gates of the Arctic'.

Answer: Denali

Denali means 'The High One' or 'The Great One' in the Koyukon Athabaskan language. There has been some controversy over the mountain's name, and Alaska has tried to get the mountain renamed on the national level as Denali since that is the common name used for it in Alaska.

The name Mount McKinley was given to the mountain by a gold prospector who wanted to show his support for President William McKinley.

Answer: Nome

The medicine was for a diphtheria epidemic, which was especially bad for the native children. The closest city with the serum needed was Anchorage, and a sled dog team was sent since the only available planes in Anchorage were currently dismantled. Nome, located on the Seward Peninsula, became incorporated shortly after gold was discovered in the area.

Answer: Yukon River

The river's source is in British Columbia, Canada, and it traverses Alaska to empty into the Bering Sea. The word Yukon means 'great river'. One of the world's longest salmon runs takes place in the Yukon River.

Answer: Labrador Sea

The Labrador Sea is east of Canada and south of Greenland. The Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea are marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean, with the Beaufort Sea being north of Alaska and the Chukchi being north and west. The Bering Sea connects to the Chukchi Sea through the Bering Strait, and is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean.

Answer: Copper

Prospectors Clarence Warner and Jack Smith were looking for a place for their horses to graze when they discovered the copper ore. In 1986, the site was declared a National Historic Landmark. It is located in the Valdez-Cordova Census Area and is named after the nearby Kennicott Glacier.

Answer: True

Tundra is a biome, or biotic community, that has very few, if any, trees. Some other characteristics of tundra are a short growth season, low temperatures, limited biotic diversity, and simple vegetation. Most of the subsoil in the North Slope's tundra is permafrost, and only a small top layer of the soil thaws each year to allow vegetation to grow.

Answer: Catatumbo lightning

The Catatumbo lightning happens in Venezuela where the Catatumbo River empties into Lake Maracaibo. The lightning that occurs is cloud to cloud, and it happens for between 140 and 160 nights a year for about ten hours.

Midnight sun refers to the Arctic Circle phenomenon where the sun is visible at midnight during the summer. Polar night is the opposite of midnight sun, and is when night lasts for all 24 hours of the day. The Aurora borealis, also called the Northern Lights, is caused when charged particles hit the atmosphere. This causes a display of lights of different colors.