his magazine launched its first issue in January of 1985, and throughout that debut year our cover featured photographs of various industries and individuals. After 1986, and continuing to today, Alaska Business covers are a mix of photography, illustrations, and graphics. But in 1986, the covers were all illustrated, a fascinating twelve-month sketchbook of the significant issues confronting our readers.

In 1985, the US Olympic Committee nominated Anchorage to host the 1992 Winter Games, which further spurred conversations in the state about how to extend the tourism season out of the summer and into the winter, since in 1986 approximately 75 percent of the state’s visitors traveled here in the summer months. In “Visitor Industry for All Seasons: Up, Up and Away, or Just More Hot Air?” Paul Laird explored the challenges of convincing visitors that Alaska is a year-round destination. While Anchorage’s nomination generated visitor interest at the time, the Olympics went to Albertville, France, and the tourism struggle continued. However, fast forward thirty-five years, and off-peak tourism grew during the COVID-19 pandemic. David Kasser, senior vice president of sales at Visit Anchorage, reports that the city now has more visitors in October through April than in the summer.

The mid-‘80s saw heated competition among airlines serving the western United States, specifically the Pacific Northwest. Alaska Airlines was caught in a “fare war,” and in “Alaska Airlines Encounters Strong Headwinds at 9 ½ Cents,” Paul Laird pared down the challenge the airline was facing to that precise monetary figure. At the time, Alaska Airlines spent $0.095 on operating expenses for each seat-mile it flew. It was $0.01 to $0.03 more than its competitors. For context, Alaska Airlines had 4.2 billion available seat miles in 1985, so the cost added up quickly. According to the article, Alaska Airlines did have one leg up on the competition: a reputation for above-average service. Clearly Alaska Airlines soared through this challenging time, acquiring Hawaiian Airlines in the last few years and routinely expanding its destinations around the world.

In 1985 the federal government transferred ownership of the Alaska Railroad to the State of Alaska, and there were concerns at the time that the railroad would go the way of the Alaska Marine Highway: not enough money and a disappointing level of service. The incomparable Paul Laird used the classic tale of A Christmas Carol as a framing narrative for his article “A Caboose Carol: Can the Alaska Railroad Continue to Thrive Under State Ownership, or Will Politicians Eventually Beat the Dickens Out of It?” The ghosts of Railroad Past, Present, and Future visited “Jalmar Scrooge” (i.e., Jay Kerttula, president of the Alaska Senate during the transfer) to share warnings about what might go awry. Laird again advocated for private ownership, but the Alaska Railroad ultimately took a different track: the state owns it, but it operates like a private company, responsible for generating enough revenue to maintain its operations—which it does. While it’s not exactly the envisioned light at the end of Laird’s tunnel, it certainly is a happy ending.

Strap in because this gets weird. The cover of August 1986 refers to the issue’s spotlight article as “American Standoff.” Internally, the article, penned by Paul Laird, is titled “Mad as Hell.” It documents a standoff between a private company, Meteor Data, and a collaborative effort of several federal agencies called the Alaska Meteor Burst Communications System (AMBCS). Both entities provided meteor burst communications services, which is essentially using the reflective trails of electrically charged particles created by meteors burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere to transmit data from one place to another. The federal agencies involved used the technology to collect climatologic data. The owner of Meteor Data asserted that AMBCS interfered with his ability to do business; AMBCS representatives didn’t feel it was the government’s responsibility to stop offering services in favor of a private company just because the company wanted it. The argument today seems settled; Meteor Data is no longer operating, and federal agencies continued using meteor burst communications to collect data as recently as 2023.

The October 1986 cover story is far less terrifying than the cover illustration would indicate. Kijik Corporation, the village corporation for Nondalton, was planning to develop the land it owns adjacent to Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, established in 1980, several years after Kijik and other Alaska Native corporations made their land selections (but before many of those lands were actually conveyed). In the article “Kijik’s Keyes to Profit,” Paul Laird explores the development plans and the concerns expressed by Lake Clark National Park officials. The concerns, though, were mild; the concluding quote of the article is from Boyd Evison, then-Alaska regional director for the National Park Service, saying, “Kijik has been darn sensitive to park values, and we recognize their efforts in developing the area in concert with the National Park Service rather than in conflict.” Skip forward to March of 2000, when Kijik Corporation established the Keyes Point subdivision with recreational lots in and around Lake Clark, some of which are available for sale to the public today.

If debates could produce electricity, conversations about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) would power Alaska for decades. According to Paul Laird in “Bambi Versus Godzilla: The Battle of ANILCA, Round 2,” environmentalists had framed the debate as a conflict between Bambi (representing the fragile and beloved Arctic, including the Coastal Plain) and Godzilla (the insatiable and destructive oil industry). Laird felt the representations were backward: a monster conglomerate of advocacy groups was on a rampage, hell-bent on destroying opportunities for a fragile Alaska economy while “reaping thousands of new members and millions in well-intentioned contributions.”

Environmental interests obstructed exploration until December 2020, when the US Bureau of Land Management held a lease sale in ANWR. The response was not robust, and the leases that were awarded were then cancelled. Those cancellations were challenged in court, yet the cancellations were then rescinded by a new administration. If only this back-and-forth energy could be stored in a battery, there would never be a need to drill in ANWR.