Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive

Alaska: The New Frontier

6 programs, 1961, KCTA-TV

From WNET:

"Alaska became the forty-ninth state in 1958; ninety-one years after Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated the purchase of the territory from the Russians.  In many ways it has changed radically since 1867, and since 1958; in others, it remains as it was centuries ago.  To explore the many faces and facets of the largest and second newest state, KCTA-TV of St. Paul, Minnesota, sent a film crew to Alaska to prepare this series.  They and their cameras traveled from modern Anchorage to Point Hope, one of the oldest Eskimo villages in the state; they visited abandoned gold mines, Armey missile sites, the governor’s office, the new settlements of homesteaders, the factories and the farms that combine to make Alaska a state of excitement and vigorous activity.  The result is a series that portrays the state with the immediacy that can be achieved only by a blending of fine visual material and informed commentary."