ten since the last decade of the last century when the works
of Bancroft and Dall were before the public. Such a work
is needed now and the recent bibliography by Judge Wick-
ersham will be an invaluable aid in the preparation. Even
if I could have afforded the leisure to set such a task for
myself, I would not have dared attempt it with my back-
ground of study and experience. Professor Channing expe-
rienced the need of a modern compilation while investigat-
ing the part that Alaska should play in his monumental
History of the United States. He was kind enough to sug-
gest this attempt because he felt that my birth and early
residence in Alaska, coupled with ten years in New England,
would give a fairer perspective than usual.

Throughout the work, I have tried to keep this perspec-
tive by avoiding on the one hand the booster spirit and on
the other, the spirit of political rancor. Nevertheless, there
is a strong temptation to extol Alaska as a natural reaction
to the numerous errors that have been circulated about the
country; to this, I have succumbed all too often.

As far as possible, the book is a compendium of the valu-
able research of such scholars as Golder, Stefansson,
Andrews, Spicer, Farrand and others, to all of whom tribute
is here offered. Further than this, some attempt has been
made to link Alaskan history with that of the contemporary
world rather than regard its development as an isolated
phenomenon. Examples in point are the reigns of Peter the
Great and Alexander I in Russia, each of which brought
Russian national consciousness and expansion resulting re-
spectively in the discovery by Bering, and the organization of

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