laska has fundamentally changed since oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay, and, in line with the oil industry’s overwhelming influence, it was an essential player in this magazine’s origin story.

The masthead in our inaugural January 1985 issue listed two editorial employees: publisher Robert F. Dixon and editor Paul Laird. In that issue, the two co-wrote an introductory letter, but Laird didn’t start a monthly Letter from the Editor until November of 1987, at which point his title had shifted to executive editor.

In that first Letter from the Editor, Laird explained that he had a friend who worked for Sohio, officially titled the Standard Oil Company (Ohio), in Alaska, and since Laird was in search of a travel destination that was both “bizarre” and housed someone he knew so he could rely on them for accommodations, Alaska fit the bill.

Laird knew little about the state except that it was supposed to be beautiful and “it was a darned shame they had to build that oil pipeline and destroy the wilderness up here. I only knew that because the Wilderness Society magazine tucked in my carry-on said so.”

He was right about Alaska’s stunning scenery; Laird was “awestruck” by the Alaska Range and Chugach Mountains, by his travels to Portage and Valdez. The pipeline, however, was a let-down.

Laird wrote, “Maybe I was expecting a ruthless metal behemoth gnawing its way through what once was wilderness. A mile-wide swath on each side, carcasses of wild animals floating in oil seeps. Like many others I’ve talked to since then, I guess I was expecting something more—something proportional to the furor it had caused. Anything but a rather indistinct 48-inch steel pipe that’s mostly buried and almost indistinguishable from a distance where it isn’t.”

Laird’s letter describes how the trip “altered his framework” and set him on a path to call Alaska his home and learn more about not just the oil and gas industry but the many major industries that have built Alaska. “Lots of myths upon which I’d based my philosophy of life up to that point have evaporated in the months, the years since then.”

Now that I occupy Laird’s position, I can relate to how learning more about Alaska’s economy is eye-opening, even though I was raised here, surrounded by Alaska’s glory. Despite my thirteen years researching and writing about Alaska, there’s still so much more for me to learn. What I do know is our state is rich in resources—not the least of which are stories of exceptional Alaskans doing fascinating things.