British (Canadian) Alaska

[Kenichiro Harada]

When we look at maps,we always see Alaska as the portion of the USA that's at the northwestern most part of North America. Is it so possible to imagine Alaska being a region of the British,and later handed over to Canada?

Could the British have taken Alaska from the Russians,and just had it as a possession..part of Rupert's Land? Later being administered by Canada? If so,would it be a province of Canada? Or a territory like Yukon,or Nunavut? I think it would be part of Canada,especially after oil is discovered.

I don't think oil in Alaska would benefit Canada much. I could just imagine British Colombia,Alberta,Yukon and the Northwest Territories being more developed possibly due to Alaska oil being pumped into Canada.

Lastly,would the region be called "Alaska" or something else? I've heard some other names that would be used if the land was possibly part of Canada.

[RandomIdeaGuy]

The Russians offered it to the British first, and the British denied in the hopes that the Russians would come back later with a lower price. So, the Russians turned to the Yankees, and you know the rest...

[Umbric Man]

Originally Posted by LoyalistColonial

The Russians offered it to the British first, and the British denied in the hopes that the Russians would come back later with a lower price. So, the Russians turned to the Yankees, and you know the rest...

I never knew the British were offered it in the first place. Any more details?

[RandomIdeaGuy]

See here.

Relevant part quoted below: (and very relevant part bolded)

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Russia was in a difficult financial position and feared losing Russian Alaska without compensation in some future conflict, especially to the British, whom they had fought a decade earlier in the Crimean War. While Alaska attracted little interest at the time, the population of nearby British Columbia started to increase rapidly after hostilities ended. The Russians therefore started to believe that in any future conflict with Britain, their hard-to-defend region might become a prime target, and would easily be captured. Therefore Tsar Alexander II decided to sell the territory. Perhaps in hopes of starting a bidding warboth the British and the Americans were approached, however the British expressed little interest in buying Alaska. The Russians then turned their attention to the United States and in 1859 offered to sell the territory to the United States, hoping that the United States would off-set the plans of Russia's greatest regional rival, Great Britain. However, no deal was brokered due to the secession of seven southern states and the eventual American Civil War.

[Teleology]

So... America says no, the Russians lower the price, and New Orkney becomes the the ice-crystal of the British Empire?

[Umbric Man]

Originally Posted by Teleology

So... America says no, the Russians lower the price, and New Orkney becomes the the ice-crystal of the British Empire?

George Vancouver did call some of the Alaskan coast New Norfolk.

I like your name better, though.

[tallwingedgoat]

We covered this many times. Just have gold discovered around the Crimean War, the Royal Navy would be all over it. I can see it being combined with the Yukon.

[Kenichiro Harada]

I've read about that before,that Alaska was basically useless to the Russians and they hoped to have a bidding war between the British and Americans for the land. But the Americans won out,eager for a foothold in the Artic.

Does anyone have alternate names for Alaska? Something tells me that the region would not have been called "Alaska" if the British took it..

[Coyote Knight]

Originally Posted by Kenichiro Harada

I've read about that before,that Alaska was basically useless to the Russians and they hoped to have a bidding war between the British and Americans for the land. But the Americans won out,eager for a foothold in the Artic.

Does anyone have alternate names for Alaska? Something tells me that the region would not have been called "Alaska" if the British took it..

New Norfolk?
New Caledonia?

Of course, in typical unimaginitive British manner, we could simply call it the "British Arctic Territory".

[Grimm Reaper]

Yes, the US won out, nearly a decade after the Russians approached them, which doesn't suggest that the US was much more eager than the British.

[Leistungsfähiger Amerikan]

Originally Posted by wikipedia;2988922The purchase was at the time derided as "Seward's folly," "Seward's icebox," and [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Johnson"

Andrew Johnson's[/URL] "polar bear garden," because it was believed foolhardy to spend so much money on the remote region.[5]
Seward, the main force behind the treaty, had long favored expansion. U.S. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, agreed that the nation's strategic interests favored the treaty. Russia had been a valuable ally of the Union position during the American Civil War, while Britain had been a nearly open enemy. It seemed wise to help Russia while discomfiting the British. Furthermore there was the matter of adjacent territories belonging to Britain (namely the Colony of British Columbia, which in 1871 became part of Canada). Were Alaska to be purchased, they would be nearly surrounded by the United States, they were asserted by the United States to be of little strategic value to Britain, and they might someday be purchased. The purchase, editorialized the New York Herald, was a "hint" from the Tsar to England and France that they had "no business on this continent." "It was in short a flank movement" upon Canada, said the influential New York Tribune. "Soon the world would see in the northwest "a hostile cockney with a watchful Yankee on each side of him," and John Bull would be led to understand that his only course was a sale of his interests there to Brother Jonathan."

Here we go. the Secretary of State Seward decided he wanted it. good investment!