INTRODUCTION Alaska: The Last Frontier. Alaska: The Greatland. Alaska: Spirit of the Wild. Alaska: the symbol. The last unexplored territory, a pristine environment, the source of Eskimo ingenuity, a place where people can follow their dreams unencumbered by the law. Although the need to earn a living in a harsh land dulls most Alaskans' enthusiasm for this romantic picture, the image prevails throughout much of the rest of the country. In the late 1970s Ohio Congressman John Seiberling mused: The fascination of Alaska, not just from the air but from the ground, is that nowhere else I have ever been can one see so clearly the hand of the Creator. It's important to people to know that there is some place...where there are large stretches of land...and there is nowhere in any direction where will be able to see any of the marks of man. It's important not only because it's unique, but to remind man of his place in the scheme of things (McGinniss 1980:221 ). Thus Alaska's primary value resides in its wildness unspoiled by humans. But if Seiberling's description captures Alaska's essence as understood by most of the world, then its largest city, Anchorage, is not Alaskan. Although situated on the tidewater glacial deposits of a picturesque mountain range and boasting unobstructed views of North America's highest peak, Mount McKinley, the architectural style of the city is frontier hodgepodge (Figure 1). began in 1915 as an encampment next to a newly constructed railroad terminal and grew in spasms to its current size of 1,955 square miles inhabited by nearly 260,000 people, almost half the state's population. The built environment consists of trailer courts, skyscrapers of 20 stories, ultra-modern arts and judicial buildings, glass-box office buildings, executive homes, three-story wooden apartment buildings, and split-level houses. Its automobile traffic is controlled by radar, parking meters and stop lights. Just as most of Anchorage's buildings evoke nothing of the accepted Alaskan image, so residents look different from other Alaskans. Many women wear dresses and heels to work, while as many men wear ties and suits as Pendleton shirts or Carhartts. The occasional fur coats are more likely to be fashion mink than the wolf, wolverine or fox one sees elsewhere in the state. Many residents experience the natural environment only on weekends, and even then often mediated by frosted car windows or commentary by paid guides. Other Alaskans are ambivalent about the city. They travel there to shop, receive health care, and visit friends and relatives, but they rush home to the relative tranquility of their smaller towns and villages. They resent the fact that almost half of Alaska's state legislators are elected from Anchorage, a situation that affords them tremendous political clout. Rural Alaskans and Native corporations dislike its receiving the lion's share of income from 48 businesses, yet base their own companies there for convenience and economy. They question whether is different from any other city in the Lower 48. Residents of Fairbanks, located 350 miles north on a tributary of the Yukon River, call it Los and say, Anchorage is the closest city to or you can see Alaska from Anchorage. Even Anchorage-born Howard Weaver, former editor of the Daily News, added to the chorus: With your own plane can still get to Alaska in half an hour (McGinniss 1980:21415). These attitudes suggest that Anchorage, like other hybrid places half in the natural world and half in civilization, can be a source of discomfort for outside observers who struggle to classify them. They can be even more so for their residents, who strive to achieve a positive, unified self definition that embraces the dual aspects of the place. Anchorageites react defensively to negativity by other Alaskans. They protest in media ads that is Alaskan. …