The main economic resource of Alaska is its natural resources. These resources, many of which are becoming scarce in more industrialized areas, need to be developed to a greater extent. Millions of new citizens are sought to aid in developing Alaska’s forest, oil, and mineral resources; to fabricate timber, furs, and nonmetallic minerals; to cultivate lands; to build roads, airports, and homes; to develop hydroelectric power potentialities; and to build a tourist industry.
Of all sections in Alaska, the rural areas are the poorest. There are hardly any economic resources to be found out there. Alaska Natives are poor as a group. This sectional and ethnic poverty creates other problems, which naturally ties them together.
However, there are economic resources that the rural areas can utilize and exploit in order to fulfill their needs. The Alaska Natives as a group could have the economic resources that everyone believes they do not have; for instance, the tourist industry. Every year thousands of people from the lower forty-eight and other countries flock to Alaska to see the “smiling Eskimo.” But to see the smiling Eskimo costs them money. . Where does this money go? To the travel bureaus and the airlines who own almost all the motels and gift shops in the villages. The fur industry is another industry that the Native people could very well control and utilize, but it does not belong to them. There are resources in the rural areas of Alaska, but that they are being exploited by people out of rural Alaska.
