Settlers flowed into the territory during the Klondike gold rush in the late 1890s. Fishing and oil production in Cook Inlet became major contributors to Alaska's economy, and along with its military bases, were largely controlled by the federal government -- even after Alaska became a state in 1959.

The discovery of the vast oil reserves in the North Slope several years later greatly altered Alaska's economy, although it was uncertain at first who owned the oil or how it would be extracted.

The Statehood Act of 1959 said the state could choose its own public lands, but only after settling land claims with Alaska Natives. Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971, which set up 12 regional and 220 village Native corporations and gave them $962 million and the authority to pick their own 44 million acres.

The law freed up the state to select its land, but the environment posed another problem for oil extraction in the North Slope. The ice covering the land only melted six weeks in the summer, which meant a pipeline was needed. Although environmentalists opposed the pipeline for fear it would disrupt caribou migration and damage the land, a bill authorizing the pipeline with certain environmental protections passed Congress in 1973.

In 1976, Alaska set up a Permanent Fund to hold its oil revenues with each one-year resident getting a dividend of 20 percent of the average of profits for the preceding five years. In 2002, the fund totaled $21.8 billion, and each resident received $1,540.

Congress approved another major Alaska-related piece of legislation in 1980 designating 159 million acres of the state as national parks, monuments or wilderness, and expanding the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Arctic Refuge's coastal plain, which comprises 1.5 million of the refuge's total 19.6 million acres, has become a point of controversy as drilling proponents and environmentalists lock horns over accessing the land for oil exploration.

Alaska also contains the nation's largest federal forest, the 17 million-acre Tongass, which covers most of the southeastern portion of the state. Restrictions on logging there have reduced the flow of timber to sawmills from 600 million board feet per year to about 50 million board feet.

Although accessing Alaska's rich resources has become a key environmental issue in national politics, it is somewhat less so in state politics. In the 2004 U.S. Senate race, for example, Republican incumbent Lisa Murkowski and her Democratic contender former Gov. Tony Knowles both support drilling in the coastal area of the Arctic Refuge. And Knowles is campaigning on his expectation that he will be able to persuade his Democratic colleagues to allow the drilling to proceed.

Murkowski and the state's other representation in Congress -- Republicans Sen. Ted Stevens and U.S. Rep. Don Young -- are strong proponents of tapping the refuge for oil. President Bush put provisions allowing the drilling in his energy proposal, which the House passed in 2001. But the Senate, where some Democratic members have promised to filibuster legislation authorizing Arctic drilling, has been gridlocked on an energy bill.

Alaska's oil production is contributing to the state gradually becoming more Republican. A large part of Alaska's population -- about 25 percent according to some estimates -- is transitory, and much of the influx is made up of young, urban professionals who work for the oil industry, said University of Alaska, Anchorage adjunct professor of political science Carl Shepro. A strong contingent of the religious right is also filling Republican ranks in the state, he said.

In 2000, George W. Bush received 59 percent of the vote to then-Vice President Al Gore's 28 percent, garnering even the traditionally Democratic Panhandle and the Native majority areas beyond Anchorage and Fairbanks, according to National Journal's Almanac.

The state has elected no Democrat to Congress since 1974, although it has had Democratic governors from 1982 to 2002, when the seat once again became Republican with the election of Frank Murkowski, a former senator.

The solidly conservative state has voted Republican in presidential elections since 1968 and will likely do so again in 2004, Shepro said.