Business: THE RICHEST AUCTION IN HISTORY

Already Alaska beckons on the north, and pointing to her wealth of natural resources asks the nation on what new terms the new age will deal with her. —The Frontier in American History, 1920, Frederick Jackson Turner

Americans have long paid little heed to their frontier of the north, idealizing instead the memory of a Western frontier that is forever gone. Now Alaska increasingly presents what Historian Turner called the "stubborn American environment" with its "imperious summons to accept its conditions." The 49th state's environment is as raw and untouched as the Great...