Recent announcements by South Korea and Taiwan that they were open to investing $54 billion and $80 billion, respectively, in a new Alaska pipeline that would transport natural gas from Arctic oilfields along a pathway similar to that of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline have Alaskans both excited and yet skeptical. They have, after all, been waiting for decades.
Should the new pipeline – and new mining projects – come to fruition, by the early 2030s the 49th state could be in the midst of a new (liquid) gold rush – making the $7.2 million Alaska Purchase, authorized by Secretary of State William Seward, a better bargain than ever.
To cartoonists like Thomas Nast, the Alaska Purchase of 1867 was a bad joke – Seward’s Folly. Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune called it 'Seward's Arctic Circus.' A year later, President Andrew Johnson was (unsuccessfully) impeached.
While the laughing stopped with the 1896 Klondike Gold Rush, it was the discovery of “black gold” that eventually led to the long-running war against development of Alaska’s vast mineral resources. Even today, the biggest risk factor for investors in Alaskan minerals is political – President Biden illegally canceled Alaska oil and gas leases on his first day in office.
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