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To-do list for Anchorage, Alaska:  ·  history ·  watch ·  refresh · Updated 2020-10-26 Help is needed with the following in order to improve not only this article, but the overall encyclopedic coverage of Anchorage: General Update population estimate data on a yearly basis. The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development publishes new numbers every year, accessible from this webpage. Compare current state of the article to "Information on Anchorage" from the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce (and similiar works) to address any lingering plagiarism (see this write-up for details). Expand Government section (the section can be renamed Government and politics). The Roads subsection of the Transportation section contains excessive details about a few major roads which already have their own articles. Consider moving those details to those articles and rewriting the subsection to reflect a more generalized overview of Anchorage's road system. Rewrite Bears in Anchorage, Alaska as Wildlife in Anchorage, Alaska, as this topic would also benefit from being covered in a more generalized context as opposed to a POV fork. History of Anchorage, Alaska needs expanding, along with pictures of Anchorage in the early days and today. Consider merging the following: Anchorage Football Stadium, Ben Boeke Ice Rink and Mulcahy Stadium into one article, Chester Creek Sports Complex (which includes Sullivan Arena, though that should remain a separate article). Biographies Create biographies on key officials in early Anchorage history who didn't serve as mayor, such as Andrew Christensen and Otto Ohlson. Create biographies on the pre-unification borough mayors of Anchorage: John Asplund, Lee B. Jordan and Jack Roderick. James Gottstein, Perry Green and Charles Wohlforth dwell nearly exclusively on how the subjects are viewed by the world at large. All of these individuals are also notable for their accomplishments in Anchorage. Please consider expanding these articles to include this information. Alaska Sports Hall of Fame, Alaska Women's Hall of Fame and List of Alaskan Hall of Fame pilots contain many redlinks and other entries of notable individuals associated with Anchorage who lack articles at present Cleanup Alaska Dispatch News and KTUU-TV give undue weight to their current owners, at the expense of providing balanced coverage of those entity's lengthy histories. List of neighborhoods of Anchorage, Alaska is badly in need of cleanup/expansion/updating. List of tallest buildings in Anchorage was largely created from data found on emporis.com, which in some cases contradicts other sources in important matters such as building heights. New articles Major districts/neighborhoods and historically separate communities lacking their own article, such as Basher (or Stuckagain Heights), Bird, Fairview, Glen Alps, the Hillside, Midtown, Mountain View, Muldoon, Peters Creek and U-Med, plus any others. Alaska Heritage Museum (founded as an adjunct of National Bank of Alaska by Elmer E. Rasmuson, can also be sufficiently explained in either of those articles rather than created as a standalone article) Alaska Museum of Natural History Alaska Regional Hospital (blue link is a {{ R without mention}} to Hospital Corporation of America, which isn't necessarily helpful as the hospital has had many owners throughout its history) Anchorage Assembly (see this article for reference) Anchorage Baptist Temple and Anchorage Christian Schools Anchorage Fire Department Museum Anchorage Municipal Light & Power Anchorage Public Library ( Draft:Anchorage Public Library was submitted with numerous issues, which were never addressed, and was deleted in December 2014) Anchorage Ski Club (parent of Alpenglow at Arctic Valley with indications of independent notability, but can also redirect to that article) Anchorage Sports Arena (went defunct ca. 1980, but was an important venue prior to the construction of the Egan Center and Sullivan Arena) Anchorage Telephone Utility (also defunct, but can't be adequately explained in existing articles on successor entities due to its own history) Atwood Foundation Campbell Airstrip Campbell Creek, including greenbelt and trail system as well as Campbell Lake Chester Creek, including greenbelt and trail system, Valley of the Moon Park and Westchester Lagoon Chilkoot Charlie's Chugach Electric Association Earthquake Park Enstar Natural Gas Far North Bicentennial Park International Ice Carving Competition Lake Spenard Mount Alyeska Northway Mall Point Campbell Military Reservation (established 1921, most of the reservation's area is now Kincaid Park, so it could be explained in that article) Rasmuson Foundation (the note accompanying Heritage Library Museum notwithstanding, there is a lot more evidence of independent notability in this case) Russian Orthodox Museum Sunrise Bakery Town Square Park (Anchorage, Alaska) University Center (defunct shopping mall and major destination 1970s–1990s — as a part of Wally Hickel's real estate empire, could also be explained in that article) Wildlife Education Center (at JBER, formerly the Elmendorf Wildlife Museum — there is/was also a wildlife museum at Fort Rich, but it's unclear whether or not the two were merged) Wolf Song of Alaska We need the help of the Wikipedia community on improving this article and related articles/pages. Priority 1 (top)

@ Snowcountryomas: Could you explain how the climate is Cfc (or Cwc)? The average high and low in January, the coldest month, are -5.2 and -11.4 °C. The average is -8.3 °C (= (-5.2 + -11.4) / 2). This is below 0 °C or even -3 °C, but the coldest month in a C climate has to be above 0 or -3 °C. So the climate is D, not C. — Eru· tuon 19:15, 22 June 2018 (UTC) reply

Transitional oceanic and subtropical climates typically don't strictly follow Köppen’s textbook definition, which does not account for maritime driven deviation. Although Anchorage lies in the transitional zone between subpolar oceanic and subarctic, it leans more toward oceanic due to El Nino being the primary determinant of winter temperatures. Average winter highs vary annually from 10^oF to 55^oF, hence not a true oceanic or subarctic climate. In the recent decade however, winter averages have been shifting more toward the range that would fall under subtropical in the Köppen system. Snowcountryomas ( talk) 08:26, 23 June 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Snowcountryomas: It's not winter highs that count as far as the Koeppen system is concerned, it's the average temperature of the coldest month. You need to find a station in Anchorage where through some range of years the average temperature of the coldest month has been above freezing (or above -3 °C in a different version of the system), because it's very misleading when climate data in the article does not support the climate classification. I checked the average monthly temperature data for the Anchorage International Airport and all the years since 2000 have had a month below freezing and even below -3 °C: 2000, 14.76 °F; 2001, 10.77 °F; 2002, 21.29 °F; 2003, 16.75 °F; 2004, 9.65 °F; 2005, 16.83 °F; 2006, 10.58 °F; 2007, 14.32 °F; 2008, 13.37 °F; 2009, 12.97 °F; 2010, 11.16 °F; 2011, 14.83 °F; 2012, 2.87 °F; 2013, 15.73 °F; 2014, 19.25 °F; 2015, 20.37 °F; 2016, 16.03 °F; 2017, 13.65 °F; 2018, 18.95 °F. Because all of the coldest-month averages were below the cut-off point, that station qualifies as a "D" type climate, not "C". — Eru· tuon 17:08, 23 June 2018 (UTC) reply

If it helps, according the Municipality of Anchorage, here, the classification for Anchorage is Dfc. Zaereth ( talk) 17:51, 25 June 2018 (UTC) reply

As I've received no response, I'm going to change the climate to Dsc, which is what Module:Climate yields for the temperatures in the first weather box. It's s (dry summer) because the driest month in the high-sun half of the year (11.9 mm in April) is less than 30 mm and less than one third of the wettest low-sun month (51.8 mm in October). That's one case where the Koeppen system gives a weird result: the wettest month (August) is actually in summer and the high-sun half of the year is a bit wetter than the low-sun half. — Eru· tuon 00:17, 5 July 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Snowcountryomas: You've reverted me, I've reverted you. Please respond here rather than reverting again. The two sets of temperature and precipitation statistics in the article both fulfill the criteria for Dsc. Do you have a set of statistics for Anchorage that fulfills the criteria for Cfc? — Eru· tuon 16:09, 12 July 2018 (UTC) reply

Just to note, a slow edit-war is still an edit war, so before this escalates... I don't question either of your expertise in the subject, but for those of us who haven't the slightest clue about the Koppen system this all appears to be based on original research. The old saying goes, "There are three types of lies: little white lies, bold-face lies, and statistics," meaning that stats not only have absolutely no bearing on individual cases, but are extremely open to interpretation. What I think would look much better and less like OR is to find sources that actually say what the Koppen classification for Anchorage is, like the one I provided above. Albeit a primary source, it is certainly a reliable one, and if anyone should know I'd think it would be the Muni of Anchorage. However, from a quick google search I see others that say Dsc, and if a better one than the Muni can be found, then that's route I'd recommend taking, rather than using personal interpretations. Then is become a question of which source is most reliable, which is what the argument should be about. (So far, I haven't seen any that start with "C".) Zaereth ( talk) 21:24, 12 July 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Zaereth: Determination of the Koeppen climate type is based on formulas, so there's no room for personal interpretation as long as you define which formula you're using on which dataset. It's therefore a routine calculation ( WP:CALC) like unit conversion done by {{ convert}}. In this case, there isn't a set of formulas mentioned in Köppen climate classification that would yield the climate classification Cfc for any of the datasets in this article.

I'm frustrated that the other editor hasn't responded yet, but it would probably be best if I didn't do any more reversion. I do agree that it looks like my word against his or hers, since I'm relying on my personal calculations and on Module:Climate, which I wrote (and which might still be buggy). I should request input from editors in WikiProject Meteorology. — Eru· tuon 21:52, 12 July 2018 (UTC) reply

I should probably mention that another formula for the Cw or Dw climates (dry winter temperate or continental) might yield Dwc for the data in the article rather than Dsc. [Edit: That is, the formula mentioned by Köppen climate classification in which Cw and Dw are defined as having 70% or more of average annual precipitation in the high-sun half of the year. But the formula for Cs or Ds would still apply, and I'm not sure which takes precedence.] — Eru· tuon 22:04, 12 July 2018 (UTC) reply

M.C. Peel et al specifically note the gray area surrounding the second precipitation regime letter of the classification for Anchorage and other parts of extreme northwest North America; the fact the paper was written before 2010 (and the release of the latest 1981–2010 normals) is irrelevant because rainfall still peaked in the 1971–2000 normals at PANC. Weatherbase, however, unambiguously lists Anchorage as Dsc, based on 1981–2010 normals at PANC. Since the Municipality already lists Anchorage as Dfc, I think a compromise can already be written, noting the subarctic temperature regime but also the ambiguity with precipitation. Suggestions for for a first letter of C are baseless.

On another note, @ Snowcountryomas:, this is the second time within two weeks that you've reverted editors without explanation. CaradhrasAiguo ( talk) 22:29, 12 July 2018 (UTC) reply

Yes. An oceanic climate requires a minimum temperature of 0C in the coldest month, which Anchorage misses by miles.

The similar edit war at Fairbanks, Alaska leads me to believe this will continue off-and-on ... he hasnt explained himself there either. There's also Climate of Anchorage. I only discovered all of this because I've been adding climate tables for various cities and sought help with what I thought at first was a glitch. Snowcountry, if youre reading this, please explain your motives. — Soap — 19:25, 28 July 2018 (UTC) reply

I reverted Snowcountryomas, yet again, and it looks like they've been temporarily blocked for edit warring. I also added the muni source to the sentence, in hopes it will encourage them to 1.) find a better source or 2.) give up and move on.

It might be worth mentioning, however (if anyone has a source), that the weather stats are gathered at Point Woronzof, which is as close to the water as you can get (thus has the warmest temps). Temperatures get cooler the farther away from the water you get, and can vary from 10 to 20 degrees between the Point and Muldoon Rd. There is also vast changes in topography, from coastal mudflats to taiga and spruce bog, to alpine tundra, and temps can be vastly lower and wind and rainfall vastly higher on the Hillside than in the lower elevations, as the mountains provide a natural barrier to incoming moisture and weather from the Inlet. (And that's just Anchorage proper. Go down Turnagain Arm and it can be drizzling in town but sunny and calm in Rainbow, windy as hell in Bird, sunny in Girdwood, and pouring rain in Portage, as if each fjord has its own little weather pattern.) Zaereth ( talk) 05:39, 31 July 2018 (UTC) reply

Thank you for the information. I notice that there's quite a cluster of stations in the Anchorage area on the Desert Research Institute's page. Perhaps on Climate of Anchorage we could have even more than the three stations we already have. — Soap — 18:10, 22 August 2018 (UTC) reply

I passed through last week. It was rainy as hell in Eagle River, beutiful and sunny in midtown, then so windy my van was basically a giant sail I had to steer against going down toward Girdwood, and then nice and calm again by Portage. I would note that Snowcountryomas is now indef blocked and has socked at least once to evade that block so we can just count them out of our future considerations on this matter. Beeblebrox ( talk) 18:27, 22 August 2018 (UTC) reply

B2C: "Easy to fix, but the same dozen or so usual suspects refuse and show up Opposing each time “per USPLACE”. Much like another bunch held Yoghurt hostage for so many years and through so many RMs." This comment assumes bad faith. No one is holding anything hostage here, and "usual suspects" is not appreciated coming from an editor such as yourself who has such a single-minded focus on one particular aspect of Wikipedia. You often link to your own personal essays; referring to WP:USPLACE has a similar function. It is well-established, consistently applied, and has been thoroughly discussed over many years. And as for "easy to fix" -- there's nothing to fix. Omnedon ( talk) 16:26, 17 September 2018 (UTC) reply

The RMs exist as a place for editors to express our style preferences. I intended to continue to argue for improvements in Wikipedia naming practices -- and I hope B2C does the same. Perhaps one day Wikipedia will adopt The Chicago Manual of Style or some other coherent style system. In the meantime, I don't feel the need to be validated by "winning" RMs or other discussions. Being right is enough for me. Nine Zulu queens ( talk) 07:31, 18 September 2018 (UTC) reply

All RM-regulars' style preferences are well-enough known. Consensus requires compromise. Wikipedia guidelines exist to avoid repeating the same battles endlessly until one side gives up from repetition-exhaustion. The guidelines are supported by centralised discussions, and there is one still live, at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Proposal to eliminate comma-state from unambiguous U.S. state capitals. What is the purpose of these remote location skirmishes, if not guerrilla disruption to destabilise consensus? I repeat my allegation, the nominator of this RM discussion, 192.107.120.90 ( talk · contribs) is someone we know, not logged in, in violation of WP:SOCK. People who take these WP:USPLACE-denying disrupting move proposals seriously, I ask them to consider whether they are feeding a troll. I mean, look at the IP's contributions, and then look at the quality of the IP's request for an uncontroversial technical rename, and tell me it was done in good faith? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 08:12, 18 September 2018 (UTC) reply

I am surprised the list of notable people does not include Larry Sanger, given that according to the article on Larry Sanger, he grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. Vorbee ( talk) 16:57, 27 October 2018 (UTC) reply

OK, I see that he might not qualify. Having just looked at the page on Larry Sanger, I see it says he was born in Bellevue, Washington. Vorbee ( talk) 07:30, 28 October 2018 (UTC) reply

I feel like it’s always a bit vague hoe to list who is “from” somewhere. Did they have to be born there, grow up there, live there as an adult? The WP:MOS may have more information somewhere. Beeblebrox ( talk) 21:31, 28 October 2018 (UTC) reply

Or we could use common sense. Let the record reflect that the topic of notable people in this article was previously discussed, now at Talk:Anchorage, Alaska/Archive 1#Notable people section. Aggressively archiving unresolved discussions may very well have the effect of hiding them (plus there's the fact that the archive bot is further screwing up an already screwed-up chronology of discussions, but that's another matter). I believe I attempted to argue for relevancy to the context of the topic listed at the top of the page, in this case Anchorage. Making a big deal out of Larry Sanger says that we're more interested in relevance to Wikipedia itself than relevance to any particular topic Wikipedia covers.

To reiterate my point from the previous discussion, this really needs to be a separate list, as there are literally hundreds and hundreds of notable people with ties to Anchorage. Giving undue weight to where someone is born makes contextual irrelevancy easy. As seen in the previous discussion, someone argued for the inclusion of Steve Smith (wide receiver, born 1985), whose only apparent tie to Anchorage is that he was born there. Take a look at the Palmer and Soldotna articles, communities which are home to a hospital serving a vast geographic region and whose sections are unnaturally weighted towards people who were born and/or died there, rather than people who are or were important to the community's history or renown to outsiders. Because a number of Wikipedians felt the need to strap a rocket onto the back of Emily Johnson, we're giving undue weight to her in the Soldotna article merely because she was born there, when other sources make it clear that she was really from nearby Clam Gulch. In that same part of Alaska, we somewhat confuse the fact that Loren Leman was born in a Los Angeles suburb with his family's history in Ninilchik. His grandmother's obituary in Alaska described her as a fifth-generation Alaskan and that his great-grandfather was the founder and namesake of Cooper Landing. You'd rather give weight to Pomona, California? Maybe that's relevant to an actual Pomona native such as Tom Waits, but Marion Leman was a resident of Ninilchik who traveled to Southern California to give birth, as Ninilchik was far from the center of the universe in the days before the Sterling Highway. As for Anchorage, the same argument applies. The existence of the Alaska Native Medical Center as well as a military hospital means that many people were born in Anchorage whose ties to Anchorage are pretty much limited to that. Bert Stedman was born in Anchorage to a family with multiple generations of history in Southeast Alaska, where he himself has lived most of his life.

Then there's the other side of the coin as far as contextual relevancy is concerned. For example, the list currently contains Andre Marrou. Marrou's notability is entirely centered on the events in his life between 1982 and 1992, when he was first a resident of Homer before moving to the Las Vegas Valley in Nevada. He spent four years in Anchorage many years before that, like many new Alaskans who first come to Anchorage then move to smaller communities. Then there's names not on that list and evidently not under consideration. An oral history project started by the Alaska Bar Association in 1982 has led to works being published in recent years on Alaska legal history, including a book published a few years ago by Epicenter Press. Those materials reveal that George Barnes Grigsby was celebrated as the grand old man of the Anchorage legal community long before either Wendell Kay or Ed Boyko held such a distinction. We reduce that to a footnote while placing weight on the fact that he served in Congress for a cup of coffee or two, when in reality his Congressional tenure was itself merely a footnote to the controversial tenure of James Wickersham and the multiple controversial elections held during the early history of the Territory of Alaska. This place is closing, so I have to leave, but I hope that I was able to satisfactorily address this issue. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 00:51, 29 October 2018 (UTC) reply

Where a person is born and where they are from are two different things. My mom was born in Montana. She lived there for three years before moving to Anchorage in 1937, and lived here ever since. She'd give you a very dirty look if you called her a Montanan. This info is highly relevant to articles about the people, but very irrelevant to articles about the places, unless that person is somehow directly tied to the notability of the place. I could see listing a few of the most famous residents, like Don Simpson or Ted Nugent, but most of these people (including Sanger) are really unknown to most of the population, so it's like, what's the point? Zaereth ( talk) 18:25, 29 October 2018 (UTC) reply

Please see Talk:Anchorage (disambiguation) for a requested move involving this article. Calidum 20:42, 21 July 2019 (UTC) reply

My watchlist brought this edit to the "Government and politics" section to my attention. The edit summary reads in part, "No need for this. This is not a [...] tabloid". Yet, even following this edit, the section gives an inordinate amount of weight to the sexual orientation of three elected officials, implying that this is not tabloid material and somehow of primary importance to the context of Anchorage as a whole. Specifically, we're highlighting the sexual orientation of Austin Quinn-Davidson while failing to point out that she is acting mayor. That means she technically still holds the office she was actually elected to (though lacking a vote in that office for the time being) and is temporarily serving in the office of mayor while remaining a citizen legislator holding a regular job outside of politics. Given that none of Ethan Berkowitz's executive team resigned, it's questionable as to just how involved she will be in carrying out the duties expected of a strong mayor. It's plainly obvious that our coverage of local government in Anchorage in general, in this article and in related articles, has been heavy on LGBT POV for years and years and years. How is behavior like this helping us to acheive an NPOV product? And how is it helping to keep editors who aren't here to push POV like this? Evidently, too many others watching this article are content to coast on "It looks pretty and happens to have citations, so that's good enough", in and of itself a POV. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 11:23, 24 October 2020 (UTC) reply

I don't have a clue as to what you are talking about, although it appears you are assigning motives to me based upon your own ideology. All I did was partially revert an edit, because I feel the part about Berkowitz is irrelevant to this article. Now I am no fan of Berkowitz, especially after all he has done to us this year, and if you don't believe me just ask Bob and Brock. Just about every time he talked on their show I had something to say about it, because the guy just pisses me off every time he opens his mouth. But that doesn't mean I think he should be vilified in an article that is not even about him, and if you think this info should be restored I respectfully disagree. It's not encyclopedic.

I haven't bothered to read the rest of the section, because, quite frankly, politics and government doesn't interest me in the slightest ... until they start trampling on my freedom and interfering with people's livelihoods that is. If there is something in there that you believe is still adding undue weight, my suggestion is: fix it. If it has something to do with people's sexual orientation, I personally don't think any of that is relevant either, unless it is germane to that person's notability, but I see no reason to point it out otherwise. Especially in an article about a city. But, honestly, the thought never crossed my mind, because it's something I just don't concern myself with, but if you think it should be removed then, by all means, just do it. I won't object. Zaereth ( talk) 16:31, 24 October 2020 (UTC) reply

Can anyone find a source for this name? I ask because someone on Reddit has claimed their child's girlfriend added that line as a prank. It's since been used on a couple websites but I can find no original source. I've marked it "Citation needed". 24.20.100.220 ( talk) 17:12, 7 December 2020 (UTC) reply

I removed it. Seems pretty dubious. Beeblebrox ( talk) 10:07, 10 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Hi there, Im proposing that we move the list of Notable people to a different page & just keep a link here, to make the article condensed & compact. THe list of notable people is very long & i feel its spoiling the look of the article.. Awaiting inputs.. Yohannvt ( talk) 05:41, 19 March 2021 (UTC) reply

My personal opinion is that the entire section is trivial, and just needs to go. This sort of info may be totally relevant to an article about the individual people, but to the article about the city, it's trivia. Many of these people are politicians here. I mean, why list politicians in Anchorage as notable people from Anchorage? It's redundant and a lot like advertising. Some of these people aren't even from here, like Sarah Palin. (Wasilla is not a neighborhood in Anchorage ... yet.)

Lists like this lead to many problems. Like, how are we defining "from"? Does that mean people who were born here? What if they moved away when they were only a month old, and never actually lived here? Do we define it as people who lived here, whether born here or not? People who were just passing through on their way somewhere else? Where do we draw the line?

As far as I can tell, this type of list is a good example of WP:NOTDIRECTORY, and I wouldn't even bother to put it into a list article. A good list article should be encyclopedic, and encyclopedias are about defining things. So, a good list article should have a thing it defines, but that thing simply consists of many different elements. Basic fighter maneuvers is a good example of a list article, and so is List of fallacies, to name but two. This is little more than a directory, like a phone book.

Some of these people are marginally notable at best. I could see maby adding a few on the same caliber as Don Simpson, but really in this context it's just trivia. So I say just nix it. Zaereth ( talk) 19:32, 19 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Support per WP:USCITIES#Notable people. Even in columns it would still be a long list. Magnolia677 ( talk) 22:21, 19 March 2021 (UTC) reply

• Split In theory, I agree entirely with Zareth's comments. In practice it is practically impossible to get rid of these lists, they are on pretty much every article on a populated place and are generally allowed to exist. Some better inclusion criteria should also be developed after the content is split. It could also be organized differently, by general categories, sportspeople, politicians, etc. Beeblebrox ( talk) 01:11, 20 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Makes sense. I have the same feeling about pop culture sections. They're like that creepy clown doll that you can throw away, bury, burn, and mail to Paraguay, and every time you turn around, there it is, sitting back on your dresser with that evil grin. I mean, do we really need to list every episode of Family Guy to spoof the Mary Kay Letourneau case in the article? We handled it over there by simply required any such info be reliably sourced to secondary sources. I think a list like this should, at the very least, have the same requirements, especially since some are living people and subject to BLP.

It would probably cut down on some of it, but then how do we define "from"? Born here? Lived here? Currently living here? Stayed for a night during a lay-over on a flight to Japan? Should we section it by that too? (Sorry, that last was a bit of a smart-ass comment.) Vague titles make for broad interpretations. Zaereth ( talk) 01:37, 20 March 2021 (UTC) reply

•  Done, see List of people from Anchorage. Also opened discussion on talk page about how to organize it and what the inclusion criteria might be. Beeblebrox ( talk) 21:01, 24 June 2021 (UTC) reply

The history section makes no reference to the indigenous people or anything that happened before the arrival of Europeans.

You know, this has come up before, and personally I would find it more interesting than most of the trivia that fills this article. The problem is, when I went looking for information, there just isn't really anything to be found. Anchorage really sort of begins as this "tent city" in the middle of nowhere, on a sandbar between two river outlets near the railroad tracks. It's amazing that a town ever formed here at all, let alone the largest one in the state, but there were a large number of factors that contributed to that, the largest being WWII and Anchorage's strategic position.

Keep in mind that Alaska is still pretty sparsely populated, and back then even less so. I know there were a few Native villages along the Knik Arm, but I've never heard of any that were in the area of Anchorage proper. The earliest historical references to the area come from Captain Cook, who was searching for the fabled Northwest Passage. He dropped anchor at Ship Creek (hence the name he used on his mapping of the area), and sent Captain Bligh up the Knik, where he met with the Natives in the Eklutna area and found out it was just a river outlet. Then he was a bit annoyed when Cook sent him south to scout the other arm, which he called Turnagain, because once he got all the way to Portage that's what he had to do. He doesn't report meeting any Natives along that direction, and I think to this day the closest village is Crow Creek.

Still I would be interested to know more about the early history of the area, because there may be a lot I just don't know about. The problem is simply one of finding sources. Zaereth ( talk) 21:25, 23 June 2021 (UTC) reply

On a side note, Anchorage did eventually become part of that Northwest Passage, it just became an aerial passage rather than a nautical one. (The quickest way to get to Europe from anywhere on the west-coast is right over the top.) Despite its lack of just about any natural resource except sand and gravel, Anchorage is a lot like Rome in that it's a hub of commerce along many trade and supply routes (all roads lead to Anchorage), and we even have our own holiday to celebrate that; Fur Rendezvous. Zaereth ( talk) 01:40, 24 June 2021 (UTC) reply

I might also add (for those who don't know) is that Anchorage proper is limited to the north by the military bases, which includes much of the coast of the Knik, up to the Nike silos around Eagle River. The military got much of the good land, but that's considered sovereign territory, and is really its own separate city from Anchorage. If anyone has records of what, if anything, was there when they arrived, it would be them. Zaereth ( talk) 19:46, 25 June 2021 (UTC) reply

I think I've managed to cover the major points. Interestingly, I stumbled across this by accident while looking up the etymology of Bootleggers Cove. I think it's good to have some of the very early history. There may have been Thule cultures living here as long as 10,000 years ago, and perhaps even Dorset people going that far back or farther. Not much evidence of the Dorset remain, as they seem to have gone extinct after Inuit expansion during the Viking Age and early Middle Ages. Either way, I don't have any sources that go that far back, and any further detail should go to the History of Anchorage article. Zaereth ( talk) 00:03, 5 August 2021 (UTC) reply

Nice work. Arbcom is a harsh mistress and takes up the bulk of my WP time these days, but I have seen your comments here and at the list page, just so you know you aren't just talking to yourself. Beeblebrox ( talk) 00:48, 5 August 2021 (UTC) reply

Thanks. I'm just glad it answered my own question of why there are no Dena'ina villages all over the place, save Eklutna. They had a very different lifestyle from the Aleut, and lived much more like their Apache cousins. Of course, in the neighborhood where I grew up all my friends were Eskimos from the Nome/Bering Sea area, so I'm more familiar with theirs and the Aleut lifestyle. It turns out that Eklutna only exists because a Russian trading post was placed nearby at Niteh on the Palmer Flats (the delta between the Knik River and the Matanuska) and a church/missionary at nearby Knik. I used to go visit those guys at Eklutna back when they had the couches sitting along the highway. They were a great bunch of guys, and funny as hell (with their sense of humor I don't know why you don't see many Native comedians), but the topic of their history just never came up. Zaereth ( talk) 19:30, 5 August 2021 (UTC) reply

I came across another book my mom had stashed away, which gives a very detailed account of the history(not to mention some wonderful photos that I'm guessing are no longer copyrighted), and so I added quite a lot the History of Anchorage, Alaska article. I tried to give a very good overview of how and why Anchorage formed, which had a lot to do with economic resources ad the town of Knik. It still needs a lot more, from 1915 to present, but I've come to a stopping point for myself. It would be good to get quite a bit more detail than we have here. Maybe RadioKAOS has some sources to add? Personally, I think we could use a little on the hydroelectric dam and the formation of Eklutna Lake (now the city's largest water supply), which I personally find fascinating. I couldn't find much more on the early Native history beyond what we have here, because most of what we know is archaeological. However, I did add more details of Cook's voyage and his crew's accounts of Native life. Zaereth ( talk) 22:46, 7 November 2021 (UTC) reply

Jsusky ( talk) 00:13, 11 August 2021 (UTC) reply

First, thanks for the post of the "map" of Anchorage:

/info/en/?search=Anchorage,_Alaska#/map/0

The actual developed Anchorage land area - including private holdings and road rights-of-way is likely to be less than 200 square miles - this would put Anchorage below #30 currently on:

List of United States cities by area

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_United_States_cities_by_area&oldid=70638810

Which of the land areas for ANY of the cities listed there include ENTIRE MOUNTAIN RANGES??

At the very least the narrative should be amended to state "mountain ranges and undeveloped land included in the Land Area figure"

The Municipality of Anchorage took over the entire borough, oh ... back in the 1970s. So, technically, the city of Anchorage (which is what a municipality is) includes Chugiak, Peter's Creek, Eklutna, Eagle River, Crow Creek, Girdwood, Portage, etc. (these are just neighborhoods as far as the Muni is concerned), and much of the Chugach National Forest. So, technically, this is correct in terms of where the Muni boundaries are.

Colloquially, Anchorage proper is limited to the north by Government hill, to the east by Muldoon and the Mountains, to the west by the inlet, and south by Potter's Marsh. But the Municipality is much larger than the town proper. (This is not uncommon, as towns like Beverly Hills and Hollywood were originally their own towns, and now are just areas in the greater municipality of Los Angeles.) However, these are physical boundaries and not the city limits which are at Knik and Portage.

If it make you feel any better, all of the top 4 are in Alaska, with the largest town per area being Sitka, with more than double Anchorage's area and a small fraction of its population. Zaereth ( talk) 00:26, 11 August 2021 (UTC) reply

Anchorage is incorporated as a unified home rule municipality. That's mentioned for sake of clarification, as someone a while back insisted on edit warring to force the term "consolidated" on this article due solely to the existence of the article Consolidated city-county. Under Alaska Statutes, consolidation and unification are addressed separately. Unified home rule municipalities are legally constituted as boroughs, not cities. The only source I've found which deviates from that is a paper source published by the Alaska Municipal League, which provides an explanation in line with the usual definition of a combined city-county.

It's incorrect to state that Anchorage's corporate limits include "much of the Chugach National Forest". The original boundaries of the forest encompassed all of present-day Anchorage, until that was chipped away by various withdrawals and reservations for settlement and military purposes. The bulk of the forest's boundaries actually lie within the Kenai Peninsula Borough and the Unorganized Borough. Nearly half of Anchorage's corporate limits are taken up by Chugach State Park, with JBER also occupying substantial acreage.

The common term for the notion of Anchorage the OP is referring to would be the "Anchorage bowl". It appears you go out of your way to avoid using that term. The infobox has long contained an area field labeled "Urban" and containing 78 square miles. I've never seen it accompanied by a source explaining what it means, its composition or who is claiming this to be a fact of some sort. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 13:38, 11 August 2021 (UTC) reply

Correct. It's not something people normally say to each other. ("You live in the Valley? I live in the Anchorage Bowl.") Mostly, I think it's a 1960s term you might hear on the news occasionally, but locally people just call it Anchorage. On Wikipedia, I always assume people from all over the world are reading, in which case "bowl" doesn't make much sense when looking at it from a map or satellite photo. (It's the alluvial coastal-plain at the base of the mountains where the two arms meet.) From the ground, though, it's easy to see when you've crossed the threshold. Anchorage is one of the few Alaskan towns where you don't actually have to add the word "proper" because the physical limits are so obvious to anyone driving through, with the military (including Arctic Valley) on one end and the fjords on the other. Anyone driving through knows you haven't entered Anchorage until you pass the George Sullivan Power Plant and haven't left it until you pass the weigh station just beyond Potter Valley Road. (Unlike towns such as Wasilla or Houston, where you'd better know where the town proper is, because that's where the cops will be sitting at their speed traps.) But to anyone reading this article, we have to describe it from a global perspective and in formal language, so I try to avoid as many local colloquialisms as possible. Zaereth ( talk) 20:00, 11 August 2021 (UTC) reply

I might clarify also, for all the map readers out there, that what we call the Turnagain Arm also begins right around that weigh station at the south end of town, because this is a boundary which you can actually see as a change in the water, both in color (turbidity and salinity) and in the form of a powerful rip tide slicing right across the mouth. (Sailboarders and windsurfers have been lost and never found after accidentally crossing that line into the Inlet.) So I would more-correctly say that the Anchorage Bowl is the alluvial coastal-plain along the headwaters of the Cook Inlet, between the mouths of the two arms. They often use the term on the weather reports to distinguish it from the Hillside (ie: "It'll be rainy and windy in the Anchorage Bowl but real f---in' windy on the Hillside and upper elevations.") The north is really bounded by the Ship Creek basin, for the most part, of which the headwaters is where that old power plant is (Also called ML&P Plant 2, whereas the old, defunct Plant 1 still sits downstream along Viking Drive). Zaereth ( talk) 01:40, 12 August 2021 (UTC) reply

Almost the exact same spot, I consider the Potter Section House the southern border of Anchorage proper. I often stop there and eat lunch on my way home from your urban death maze. I also enjoy yelling "so long StinkTown" out the window of my car when crossing under that last overpass right before the marsh. Beeblebrox ( talk) 02:26, 12 August 2021 (UTC) reply

I believe the politically correct term is "Stank-orage", (as opposed to Square-banks, Val-disease, or Wa-syphilis). You know, I've never heard a bad word said about Kenai. By the way, what maze? Nearly all roads run due north/south and east/west. Have you ever been to Fairbanks? I was driving 50 mph down a road that suddenly ended in a Carrs parking lot! That's the craziest laid-out city I ever saw north of Seattle... but, I digress. Zaereth ( talk) 02:47, 12 August 2021 (UTC) reply

Jsusky ( talk) 00:51, 18 August 2021 (UTC) reply

Zareth wrote:

"technically, the city of Anchorage (which is what a municipality is) includes Chugiak, Peter's Creek, Eklutna, Eagle River, Crow Creek, Girdwood, Portage, etc. (these are just neighborhoods as far as the Muni is concerned), and much of the Chugach National Forest."

Zareth also wrote:

"On Wikipedia, I always assume people from all over the world are reading, in which case "bowl" doesn't make much sense when looking at it from a map or satellite photo."

From these it's clear that Zareth is aware that many (nearly all) readers do not witness the Chugach Mountains on a daily basis and that to "technically" call Anchorage the "4th largest city in the U.S. is utter HOR$E$#!T"

(or to be "genteel" - NONSENSE)

to add that the figure includes:

"mountain ranges and undeveloped land included in the Land Area figure"

helps the careful reader to understand where the city lies in the context of the usual flat-land cities (Jacksonville, Oklahoma City, Houston, et al)

see:

/info/en/?search=List_of_United_States_cities_by_area

(Butte and Anaconda also stink in that list)

More Zareth:

"all of the top 4 are in Alaska, with the largest town per area being Sitka, with more than double Anchorage's area"

Thanks for pointing this out. Those cities in "southeast" do even more violence to common sense and commonly understood juxtapositions of "city" and "area". Note that Wrangell (with fewer than 2500 - really?) may not count as a "city" in America-at-large (or the rest of the world).

All this is obvious - by "reverting" you:

1) make this entry marginally more deceptive

2) help the credulous to remain so - GOOD JOB!!

Hello again Jsusky. First, some general Wikipedia ettiquette: It's normally a good idea to sign your posts at the end rather than the beginning, because that's where people look for it. Although I can see you're upset by your tone, it is rarely helpful to rant about it to the very people you're trying to convince. That's just counterproductive.

Likewise, your edit was reverted not so much because of what you were trying to say, but because of how you said it. If you had made that clarification more factual and less editorial, then it likely would have stayed.

That said, I think that you may be making "mountains out of molehills" here, no pun intended. (Ok, maybe just a little intended.) What this comes down to is the many different definitions of the word "city". To focus on only one definition as being "correct" is a form of etymological fallacy. Many cities include parkland in their areas, as well as lakes and waterways. Far more include suburban areas outside what would be formally defined as a "city", yet lie within those city limits.

This is why, since the 14th century, people have added the word "proper" to towns and cities, meaning "exact". The city proper is an area within the city limits that represents the older, archaic definition of "city", excluding outlying areas that fit within the city limits under newer definitions.

The true city limits of Anchorage encompasses all of that parkland and wilderness, so under this definition of the word, the area is correct, albeit the city proper is far smaller. Zaereth ( talk) 01:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC) reply

To help clarify what I mean, when my mom first came here, the city limits were at Government Hill/Ship Creek and 9th ave. When my dad moved here, they were at Ship Creek and Tudor rd. When I was a kid they were at Dimond blvd, and shortly thereafter moved to Rabbit Creek rd. Not long after that, the city limits moved all the way from the Knik River to Portage Lake. The reason of course is that the muni wanted all the tax money from the surrounding communities (past and future) but without giving them the typical benefits of paying those taxes. (My neighborhood was a really nice place until Anchorage moved in.) The city proper is now defined only by its physical limitations; everything north of Ship Creek is military and south are fjords. There are no oficial "city-proper limits". But mark my words, it won't be long until the park shrinks and houses fill every valley, and towns like Wasilla and Willow will just be neighborhoods in Anchorage, consumed like Spenard and Mountain View were. Zaereth ( talk) 01:56, 18 August 2021 (UTC) reply

Oh, and in all that over-explaining (which I'm often prone to on talk pages; it's all a part of my own internal process more than anything), as you can see with this edit, I do agree that this article could use some clarification, but at the moment I haven't really considered the best place to put it or how best to word it. If you have some ideas on how to say it in a more encyclopedic way, you're more than welcome to give it another shot, or, better yet, post your ideas here so others can give their feedback. If you can find good sources (which shouldn't be too hard) then those would go a long way toward helping you achieve your goal. Zaereth ( talk) 03:14, 18 August 2021 (UTC) reply

I have to agree with Zareth that ranting on the talk page and inserting your opinion into the article are not good ways to make your point. I think we probably all agree that this should be explained, but not by just saying it is "misleading" because you find it to be so. (Incidentally we have the opposite issue here in Homer. Diamond Ridge, Fritz Creek, Kachemak City and even stuff way out by Fox River, Alaska is all generically considered part of Homer. Kachemak City was created specifically to avoid being annexed by Homer, but nobody who isn't from here even knows it exists.) Beeblebrox ( talk) 19:26, 18 August 2021 (UTC) reply

I'd love to come here and just rant. Like my biggest problem with Anchorage is that people come here from ... wherever, because it's the rough, Alaskan wilderness (as long as they have comfortable hotels, cable TV, restaurants, and king-sized motorhomes), and then they spend the rest of their lives turning it into wherever they came from. Hence the local term "Los Anchorage" (which is not used in a flattering way; California may as well have annexed it, because once there it's not like being in Alaska anymore). But as good as it would feel to gripe about it here, that's really not helpful to the goal of making a good, coherent article about Anchorage. But I do understand the urge. I'd just like Jsusky to know that we encourage them to help, but there are better ways to accomplish their goals. Zaereth ( talk) 21:30, 18 August 2021 (UTC) reply

• Done. Hopefully that will satisfy everybody. Zaereth ( talk) 00:52, 24 August 2021 (UTC) reply

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 00:22, 9 January 2022 (UTC) reply

This must be a typo. What is meant here by “symmetry”? 69.138.14.233 ( talk) 23:57, 16 September 2022 (UTC) reply

Not clear what residents were contemuous of. Another typo? 69.138.14.233 ( talk) 00:02, 17 September 2022 (UTC) reply