21 February 2022
A 1774 English translation of the map of the Aleutian Islands, originally made by Jakob von Stæhlin, inaccuately depicting the Alaskan peninsula as an island bearing the name Alaschka
The name Alaska comes from the Aleut alaxsxix̣, meaning mainland, originally only a reference to the Alaska Peninsula, from which the Aleutian Islands extend. Later it was applied to the entire territory that would eventually become the state.
Russian explorers were the first Europeans to visit Alaska in the 1730s and again in 1741 when Vitus Bering led a Russian expedition there. The territory was colonized by the Russians in the late eighteenth century, mainly by fur traders. The United States purchased the territory from Russia in 1867. It became a state in 1959.
The first appearance of the name Alaska in an English context is on a map found in a 1774 translation of Jakob von Stæhlin’s An Account of the New Northern Archipelago. On the map, the Alaska Peninsula is depicted as an island and bears the name Alaschka I.
The name appears in the 1778 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica in the entry for Kamchatka, in a section describing the Fox Islands, the part of the Aleutian chain closest to the mainland:
According to the reports of the oldest inhabitants of Umnak and Unalaska, they have never been engaged in any war, either amongst themselves or with their neighbours, except with the people of Alashka, the occasion of which was as follows. The son of the toigon or chief of Umnak had a maimed hand; and some inhabitants of Alashka, who came to visit upon that island, fastened to his arm a drum, out of mockery, and invited him to dance. The parents and relations of the boy were offended at this insult: hence a quarrel ensued; and from that time the people have lived in continual enmity, attacking and plundering each other by turns. According to the reports of the islanders, there are mountains upon Alashka, and woods of great extent at some distance from the coast. The natives wear cloaths made of the skins of reindeer, wolves, and foxes; and are not tributary to any of their neighbours. The inhabitants of the Fox-Islands seem to have no knowledge of any country beyond Alashka, which is one of the most easterly islands yet discovered in these seas, and is probably not far distant from the continent of America.
It appears again in 1780 in William Coxe’s Account of the Russian Discoveries Between Asia and America:
About 20 versts from the North East promontory of Aghunalashka lie four islands: the first, Akutan, is about half as big as Umnak; a verst further is the small island Akun; a little beyond is Akunok; and lastly Kigalga, which is the smallest of these four, and stretches with Akun and Akunok almost from N. to S. Kigalga is situated about the 61st degree of latitude. About 100 versts from thence lies an island called Unimak*, upon which Captain Krenitzin wintered; and beyond it the inhabitants said there was a large tract of country called Alashka, of which they did not know the boundaries.
[...]
* Krenitzin wintered at Alaxa, and not at Unimak.
And the spelling Alaska is in place by 1784, when James Cook and James King’s A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean is published. It appears in a section penned by King in October 1779, after Cook’s death:
It is here to be observed, that the most considerable and valuable part of the fur-trade is carried on with the islands that lie between Kamtschatka and America. These were first discovered by Beering, in 1741, and being found to abound with sea-otters, the Russian merchants became exceedingly eager in searching for the other islands seen by that navigator, to the South East of Kamtschatka, called, in Muller's Map, the Islands of Seduction, St. Abraham, &c. In these expeditions they fell in with three groups of islands. The first about fifteen degrees to the East of Kamtschatka, in 53° North latitude; the second about twelve degrees to the Eastward of the former; and the third, Oonalashka, and the islands in its neighbourhood. These trading adventurers advanced also as far East as Shumagin's Islands (so called by Beering), the largest of which is named Kodiak. But here, as well as on the continent at Alaska, they met with so warm a reception in their attempts to compel the payment of a tribute, that they never afterward ventured so far. However they conquered and made tributary the three groups before mentioned.
Sources:
Cook, James and James King. A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, vol. 3. London: G. Nicol and T. Cadell, 1784, 371–72. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Coxe, William. Account of the Russian Discoveries Between Asia and America. London: J. Nichols for T. Cadell, 1780, 166–67. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Everett-Heath, John. Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names, sixth ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2020. Oxfordreference.com.
“Kamchatka.” Encyclopædia Britannica, second edition, vol. 6. Edinburgh: J. Balfour, et al. 1778, 4017. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, December 2020, s.v. Alaskian, adj.; July 2020, s.v. Alaska, n.; September 2019, s.v. Alaskan, adj. and n.
von Stæhlin, Jakob. “Map of the New Northern Archipelago Discovered by the Russians in the Seas of Kamtschatka and Anadir.” An Account of the New Northern Archipelago. London: C. Heydinger, 1774, 44–45. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Image credit: Alaska State Library, Historical Collections. Public domain image as a mechanical reproduction of a work created before 1925.