From water pipelines to hydrogen bomb ports, Alaska holds a history of dreamers as big as the Last Frontier state.

As the world steps into a new year brimming with possibilities, a reflection on Alaska's wildest visions through its relatively brief history can offer a glimpse into humanity's boundless imagination. From grandiose pipelines spanning oceans to domed cities beneath the shadow of Denali, the Last Frontier has long been a canvas for audacious ideas that dared to reshape the future – and serves as a reminder of how bold thinking can pave the way for progress.

From its earliest days as part of the United States, Alaska has often been viewed as an underdog. Derided as "Seward's Folly" after its 1867 purchase from Russia, this sprawling wilderness was dismissed by many as a frozen expanse of little value.

Yet, the people of the North often have a way of defying expectations. Establishing itself as a hotbed for precious metals and exotic goods during World War II, its strategic importance became undeniable as the U.S. fortified Alaska to protect against potential Japanese incursions in the Pacific.

The construction of the Alaska Highway and military installations such as Fort Richardson and Elmendorf Air Force Base laid the groundwork for modern infrastructure while reinforcing its role as a gateway to the Arctic and beyond.

By the mid-20th century, Alaska became a linchpin of national defense during the Cold War; its untamed wilds transformed into a critical line of defense against the Soviet Union, earning it the moniker the "Guardian of the North."

Federal investments in military infrastructure brought roads, railways, and a surge of settlers, tripling Alaska's population in a generation. This era of transformation paved the way for statehood in 1959 – a milestone that many doubted would ever become reality.

Despite the victory, statehood brought its own set of challenges. The drafting of Alaska's constitution was a masterpiece of foresight, but governing such an immense and sparsely populated region was no small feat.

Land disputes between Alaska's newly formed Native corporations, the federal government, and the state culminated in the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, a landmark law that reshaped ownership and influence across the state, ultimately becoming one of the largest land redistributions in U.S. history.

And a great amount of land there was to be disputed. The vastness of Alaska's territory and the complexity of its history are mirrored in its geography – a landscape both extraordinary and perplexing.

Spanning a landmass that easily swallows Texas, Alaska stretches from the Arctic to the Pacific, bridging continents and holding distinctions unmatched by any other state.

With the Aleutian Islands crossing the International Date Line, Alaska also holds the unique distinction of being both the easternmost and westernmost state, as well as the most obvious northernmost.

These remarkable geographical extremes are matched by cultural contrasts, as Alaska's diverse population – often joking about being a decade behind the "Lower 48" – has forged an identity blending modern ingenuity with an enduring spirit of tradition.

Walter Hickel

Perhaps less a reflection of those born here and more a trait of those drawn to its wildness, Alaska seems to foster a certain eccentricity among those who come to call it home.

Walter Hickel

Case in point: Walter J. Hickel.

A two-time governor of Alaska and former U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Hickel was no stranger to controversy. Known for his unapologetically pro-development stance, he was a figure who championed Alaska's potential with a fervor that both inspired and polarized – a philosophy best summarized through his own words.

"Virginity is a good thing, but birth is necessary for progress."

Yet, no one would accuse Hickel of lacking ambition. Even during the twilight of his life, he could be found pacing the floor of his investment –company office in the Hotel Captain Cook, passionately asserting that his grandest dream would still come to pass.

"Someday, they'll build it," he told the Los Angeles Times, holding up an old promotional poster for his "Alaska-California Sub-Oceanic Fresh Water Transport System" – a $150-billion pipeline that would tap the glacier-fed wild rivers of the Last Frontier and deliver the water 2,000 miles to The City of Angels.

Even at 86 years old at the time of the interview in 2006, he never stopped believing one day it would come true.

"I may be dead by then," he said, "but they'll build it."

To further exemplify the type of man Hinkel was, when asked how much Californians would have to pay for Alaskan glacier water, he quipped, "Depends how thirsty they are."

Ambitious as it may seem, this was far from Hickel's only larger-than-life idea. Among his other grand visions was a $30-billion, 55-mile rail and highway tunnel beneath the Bering Strait, designed to link Alaska to Siberia.

With a personality matching the size of the state, Hickel was unapologetically himself until his passing in 2010 at the age of 90.

Nevertheless, Hickel was just one of many Alaskans who dreamed of carving the landscape, reaping its resources, or leaving an indelible mark on the wilderness at a fantastic scale.

From its frontier territory days through its admission as a state and on to the present, Alaska has attracted and even elected some of the biggest dreamers. However, not all of these ambitions have been met with enthusiasm.

Mike Gravel

In recent memory, the state's three-person congressional delegation faced sharp criticism for championing federal projects derided as "bridges to nowhere," seen by some as emblematic of pork-barrel spending gone awry.

In the 1970s, then-Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) pitched a bold and eccentric vision: using federal funds to construct a massive Teflon dome over the Tokositna River.

His "Denali City" concept included malls, condos, a golf course, hotels, and a conference center, all under a controlled 72-degree climate with breathtaking views of Denali (previously Mt. McKinley), North America's highest peak.

Until his passing in 2021 at the age of 91, Gravel remained steadfast in his pursuit of grand dreams, including an improbable bid for the presidency.

Today, many Americans view Alaska as a pristine wilderness best left untouched. Ask Alaskans, however, and you'll often hear a more nuanced perspective, balancing the need for preservation with the opportunities the land provides – Northern living tends to foster a healthy sense of pragmatism.

This pragmatism has long been a defining trait of Alaska's leaders, a sentiment echoed decades ago by Frank Murkowski, a former U.S. Senator and later governor of Alaska.

Addressing criticisms of the state's reliance on federal funding, he asserted: "Alaska does not just take. We give, and we have the capacity to give much, much more – if permitted to do so."

Though years have passed since Murkowski's declaration, his words still resonate with the issues of today.

Pragmatic progress

Frank Murkowski

As true then as they are today, Murkowski's words continue to echo through Alaska's ongoing efforts to harness its immense natural resources.

Among the most ambitious undertakings is the Alaska LNG project, a multibillion-dollar initiative over two decades in the making. Designed to transport 3.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas daily from the North Slope to domestic and international markets, it was as much a point of contention during Murkowski's tenure as it remains today.

Envisioned as an 807-mile pipeline terminating in Nikiski, the project is estimated to cost $38.7 billion and promises to bolster Alaska's economy by creating thousands of jobs during construction and providing a steady energy supply.

Despite receiving federal approvals and environmental reviews, the Alaska LNG project has faced its share of challenges, from fluctuating global energy demands to opposition from environmental groups.

Its trajectory evokes comparisons to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), a landmark achievement that reshaped the state's economy and established Alaska's ability to operate on some level of self-dependence.

Completed in 1977, the 800-mile TAPS was built to transport crude oil from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, overcoming enormous logistical, environmental, technological, and legal challenges. Like the LNG project, TAPS faced fierce opposition and skepticism but ultimately became a cornerstone of Alaska's economy and a marvel of engineering.

While TAPS was completed in just three years – a testament to an era of streamlined approvals and cohesive priorities – the Alaska LNG project has been mired in decades of regulatory and economic hurdles.

And yet, after twenty years of red tape, with lawmakers and three major oil companies working to secure financing for the Alaska LNG project, it remains in a state of limbo. Despite its promise of economic growth and job creation, the project has continued to wrestle with environmental concerns, regulatory delays, and shifting energy markets – challenges that highlight the persistent barriers to resource development in Alaska.

Two types of big

Stepping back from modern developments, Alaska has long been a land of bold ventures and quick payoffs. From Russian fur traders and whalers to American gold prospectors and today's oil and gas men – many of these gambles have paid off handsomely.

Wikimedia Commons

With 48-inch diameter steel pipes, 100,000 forty-foot sections of half-inch steel were welded together, culminating in the construction of the largest project ever undertaken by a private industry.

Over the last several decades, Alaskan leaders have fought to exercise the resource development rights enshrined in the state's constitution. This includes advocating for drilling in the federally controlled Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and advancing the controversial Pebble project near Bristol Bay, one of the world's largest undeveloped copper deposits.

But for all the oil, gold, copper, and fish plucked from the waters and wilderness of Alaska, many of the most intriguing – or downright horrifying – ideas remain confined to the imagination.

Some of Hickel's visions were so ambitious, or perhaps otherworldly that even his friends joked he lived in "Wallyworld," a realm not quite in alignment with reality.

Yet, Hickel's larger-than-life persona was grounded in tangible achievements. A former boxer from Kansas turned millionaire real estate developer, he played a pivotal role as both governor and Nixon's Interior secretary in securing the approval and construction of the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

"Big projects define a civilization," Hickel told the LA Times, speaking from his investment company office, a vivid relic of the 1960s with its pink and orange tones, carpeted walls, and a DC-10 model from the now-defunct Western Airlines perched in the corner.

"My question has always been: Why war – why not big projects?" he added. Hickel was fired from Nixon's Cabinet after suggesting that the president pay more attention to young Vietnam War protesters. "Big projects can keep countries from going to war with each other."

The quirky history of Alaska's bold schemes and the dreamers behind them has become something of a cottage industry, with state historians easily recounting a long list of ambitious endeavors.

"Alaska has always been a place that attracts fanciful dreamers," Gunnar Knapp, a professor of economics at the University of Alaska-Anchorage Institute of Social and Economic Research, told the LA Times. "And from time to time, there have been big projects that have come to pass."

Referring primarily to the Alaska Railroad, built from 1915 to 1923 (which Murkowski favored extending from Fairbanks to Nome); the Alaska Highway, built during World War II; and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

"They stand out because they have to be big," Knapp added. "The nature of Alaska as a faraway and expensive place makes them by definition a huge thing."

Another perspective from an Alaska academic offers an important distinction.

It is "useful to differentiate between projects that had to be big because of Alaska's remoteness, and projects that were big ... well, because someone wanted them that way – the grandiose, I guess?" Timothy Rawson, an associate professor of history at Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage, told the LA Times.

"I'd put the Alaska Highway and the TAPS into the first category. They weren't built bigger than was needed, but just had to be big."

He placed "domed cities" and Project Chariot – without question the most outlandish plan in Alaska's history – firmly in the second category.

Alaska.org

Comprising a total area of 586,412 square miles, Alaska alone is one-fifth the size of the entire Lower 48 states of America.

If you build it, they will come

Few ideas epitomized the "grandiose" more than Edward Teller's Project Chariot. In the late 1950s, the renowned physicist behind the hydrogen bomb envisioned creating a harbor in northwest Alaska, 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, by detonating five thermonuclear bombs.

Proponents framed the idea as a fitting symbol of Alaska's new statehood.

"We think the holding of a huge nuclear blast in Alaska would be a fitting overture to the new era which is opening for our state," wrote Clifford Cernick, editor of the Fairbanks News-Miner.

However, Project Chariot ultimately failed to move forward, much to Teller's disappointment.

Though figures like Gravel, Hickel, and Murkowski no longer represent Alaska, the state continues to send leaders to Washington with grand ambitions for the Last Frontier – plans that are not always met with universal acclaim.

Widely criticized as prime examples of government largesse, the "bridges to nowhere" became a symbol of Alaska's ambitious infrastructure dreams gone awry.

The first, a proposal to connect Ketchikan to Gravina Island, where its airport is located, and the second, a plan for a bridge across the Knik Arm near Anchorage, faced national ridicule for their exorbitant costs relative to perceived benefits. These projects earned Alaska's congressional delegation the Golden Fleece Award from the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense for what was seen as wasteful federal spending.

Although the projects were officially stripped from the federal budget, Alaskan lawmakers still managed to secure enough federal highway funds to keep design and planning efforts moving forward.

Developers argued that the proposed bridges in Anchorage and Ketchikan didn't lead to "nowhere" but to underdeveloped areas with significant potential for growth – a perspective shared by many Alaskans.

"We do elect people who think big to be our governors, or to represent us in Washington," said Knapp, adding that Alaskans tend to believe it is possible to draw resources and still be a good steward of the environment.

Even decades ago, polls routinely showed that Alaskans favor drilling for oil in the Arctic refuge in much greater percentages than do Americans as a whole.

"That kind of thinking is very representative of people in Alaska," Knapp added. "If there's oil or gas, it should be drilled; if there's timber, it should be cut; if there's gold, it should be mined."

Optimism for Alaska's future remains strong under the incoming Trump administration, as highlighted by Gov. Mike Dunleavy's recent call to reverse policies seen as obstructing the state's resource development.

With proposals such as the Ambler Road and expanded oil exploration, Dunleavy envisions a partnership that could unlock Alaska's vast potential while addressing long-standing frustrations over federal overreach.

In the end, efforts to enhance the state's infrastructure have frequently met with significant obstacles. Projects like the West Susitna Access Road, the Ambler Road project, the Port of Nome expansion, and the Knik Arm Bridge near Anchorage have often been delayed, stalled, or abandoned altogether.

Nevertheless, if there is one thing the North has taught those who live there, it is that persistence, resilience, and sheer stubbornness can weather any storm.