The day the US stopped freezing out the Alaskans

Even to Americans, the remote Arctic enclave seems a place apart. And it has an extraordinary history - for Alaska could so easily have been Russian. The first European explorers did not arrive there until 1741, when the early American colonies were already thriving. The expedition was led by a Dane, Vitus Bering, and his Russian deputy, Alexei Chirikov.

When they returned to Moscow with magnificent sea-otter pelts, Alaska was immediately hailed as the home of the world's finest furs. By the 1790s, hundreds of Russian fur traders had crossed the Bering Strait, bringing Orthodox Christianity with them. But the effect on the indigenous people was catastrophic; during the first two generations, 80 per cent of the Aleut natives were murdered or succumbed to disease.

With news spreading of the province's mineral riches, other European powers were quick to join the scramble for Alaska. Desperate to revive its fortunes, the crumbling Spanish empire sent scientific expeditions north but their legacy was no more than a scattering of Hispanic place-names. A handful of British traders headed into the ice, backed by the powerful Hudson Bay Company.

But it was the Russians who established themselves in Alaska, with Tsar Paul II encouraging the new Russian-American Company to tap its natural resources. The harsh conditions still made it an unattractive posting: even at the height of Russia's influence, only 700 colonists were prepared to brave the cold. By 1867, with Russia in desperate financial straits, Tsar Alexander II decided to cash in. Keen not to sell to his British rivals, he told his envoy to Washington to get the best deal possible. And after a marathon all-night session, the US Secretary of State William Seward agreed to buy Alaska for $7.2 million (worth about $105 million today).

Most Americans thought the deal was a con. The territory was a "frozen wilderness," said one newspaper, and the Alaska Purchase was nicknamed "Seward's Folly". Yet soon its value became apparent, and when gold was found in 1899, settlers flooded in. Alaska became a haven for commercial fishermen and miners. But it did not gain full statehood until 1958.

Even now, Alaskans remain a people apart. Their state is not physically connected to the rest of the United States; they have their own cultural traditions, including Russian Orthodoxy, and around one in five have Native ancestry - a higher proportion than in any other state. If Sarah Palin makes it to the White House, they will have won the ultimate badge of acceptance.