DO NOT USE THIS BLOG POST AS SOURCE MATERIAL!

Notable people from Alaska! I don’t know why I just spent four hours breaking down this information. I don’t remember what sparked the desire to look up famous people from Alaska this morning.

The list is not comprehensive. I used a pre-existing Wikipedia article; I did not use Google. Except to find the Wikipedia article, which was last modified on 12/10/13. I did not chase back up sources for any of the people or what they did that was notable or when they died. If they have died and are not immortal or something. Alaska. Who knows what really goes on up there?

If you are doing some sort of paper about notable Alaskan people DO NOT USE THIS BLOG POST AS SOURCE MATERIAL! Would anyone ever be stupid enough to do that? You never know.

The criteria used for including people in the article is quoted as, “individuals who were born in Alaska, grew up there, retired there, or in any other fashion lived there even if for only a brief period of time (such as infancy, during one or more of the many gold rushes during the late 19th century and early 20th century, or as a result of rapid military influx and out flux from 1940 onward).”

All numbers are approximate. They may not add up because math. I was making notes on the backs of envelopes. Occasionally I lost track of whether or not I had marked someone down. I don’t want to have to type ‘approx.’ it for every single stat so I’ll say it once more here: ALL NUMBERS ARE APPROXIMATE.

Many of the individuals were noted for a several things but in different categories, e.g., politics and writing. I did look them up if I wasn’t sure in which category I wanted to put them.

The article listed people from the 1800s to the present. There’s nothing before the 1800s because there were few non-native peoples lived there in the 1700s. Lots and lots of native peoples lived there, but they had more interesting things to do then record the native version of “Washington slept here.”

Notable people of Alaska: 133 men, 53 women

 

Artists: A broad category. I lumped in all the things people consider the traditional arts both visual and dramatic as well as such creative things such as writers and journalists, a printmaker, and a video game designer.
Living	Died 2000-2013	Died 1900-1999	Died 1800-1899
56: Jewel Kilcher-singer Robin Hobb-fantasy fiction writer	7	14	0

 

Science and Education: Includes the regular science-y stuff and also historians, an ethnographer, and the last speaker of the last speaker of the Eyak language ‘cause I figured language is culture and relates to anthropology.
Living	Died 2000-2013	Died 1900-1999	Died 1800-1899
8: William Oefelein -astronaut	3 Marie Smith Jones –Last speaker of Eyak Language	3	0

 

Sports: Includes well-known sports as well as dog sled racers and mixed martial artists.
Living	Died 2000-2013	Died 1900-1999	Died 1800-1899
42	2	5 Leonhard_Seppala: sled dog racer, key musher in the 1925 serum run to Nome	0

 

Politics and Law: Politicians, activists, lawmen, lawyers, and one female former United States CIA Operations Officer (pretty much a spy-but she’s on our side).
Living	Died 2000-2013	Died 1900-1999	Died 1800-1899
9: Valerie Plame: Spy! Sarah Palin	4	5 Wyatt Earp: Lawman	0

 

Crime: I’m sure Alaska has its share of common criminals, these are just the best known.
Living:	Died 2000-2013	Died 1900-1999	Died 1800-1899
0	0	1 Robert Stroud: convicted killer, later better known as "The Birdman of Alcatraz"	1 Soapy Smith: Con Artist and gangster
Military:
Living:	Died 2000-2013	Died 1900-1999	Died 1800-1899
0	1	4	0

 

Business:
Living:	Died 2000-2013	Died 1900-1999	Died 1800-1899
0	1	1	0

 

Adventurers: Explorers and aviation pioneers. I put the aviation guys here instead of science because I felt like it.
Living:	Died 2000-2013	Died 1900-1999	Died 1800-1899
0	0	11	1

 

WTF: Dood, you should not be famous. Unsurprisingly, they’re all still living in 2013. Being famous for…being famous is a relatively new phenomenon.
Living:	Died 2000-2013	Died 1900-1999	Died 1800-1899
4 Levi Johnston: former partner of Bristol Palin	0	0	0

 

I’ve now spent another two hours typing it all up.  I don't know why all the other tables worked fine but I can't get the crime and the military tables apart. Normally I would look up pictures to break up all the text but I have to make sloppy joes. I'm tired and have other things to do. I spent six hours on this. Why? Even I don’t know.