Page 25 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide 2017 - Alaska

A POR TR AIT OF ALASK A  23

have moved here because of a perceived
sense of individual freedom that is
becoming increasingly rare in most of
the Lower 48 (the contiguous US states).
Demographically, about 15 percent of
Alaskans are of Native heritage, while the
rest are mainly of European descent.
Over 18 per cent of the population is
African-American, Hispanic, Asian, or
Pacific Islander, and minority numbers
are increasing, especially in Anchorage.
Most of the Native population lives in
rural Alaska off the road system, while
other minorities live primarily in Juneau,
Anchorage, Fairbanks, and other large
towns. Significant num bers of Asians,
mainly Koreans and Filipinos, work as
temporary laborers on fishing boats and Kayaking in glacial waters in Southeast Alaska
in canneries along the Gulf of Alaska,
and every summer, the cruising and endless daylight of summer, however,
tourist industry employs hundreds of Alaskans go into overdrive, packing in
seasonal workers. as many activities as possible before the
Most Alaskans tend to hole up season winds down, the days shorten
during the cold, dark months of winter, and winter returns. While summer
preferring to work on indoor projects visitors would be forgiven for assuming
and plan for the summer, although this that all Alaskans are hyperactive, there
hibernation is usually broken up by is so much to see and do that it is
forays into the outdoors to ski, ice-fish, almost impossible not to join them in
buzz around on snow machines, or their infectious round-the-clock
go mushing (dog sledding). In the summer spirit.

Fly fishing in the clear blue waters of the Kenai River

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