Whose "Last Frontier"?

The Nomadic Blog

Notes and reflections on history and education

Whose “Last Frontier”?

Nate Noorlander
May 20, 2025

If you were studying the Korean War, you could use a North Korean textbook and get coverage like this:

Upset by the fast and astonishing growth of the power of the Republic, the American invaders hastened the preparation of an aggressive war in order to destroy it in its infancy… The American imperialists furiously carried out the war project in 1950… The American invaders who had been preparing the war for a long time, alongside their puppets, finally initiated the war on June 25th of the 39th year of the Juche calendar. That dawn, the enemies unexpectedly attacked the North half of the Republic, and the war clouds hung over the once peaceful country, accompanied by the echoing roar of cannons.

Or you could use a South Korean textbook and get coverage like this:

The North Korean communists prepared themselves for war. Kim Il-sung secretly visited the Soviet Union and was promised the alliance of the Soviets and China in case of war. Finally, at dawn on June 25th, 1950 the North began their southward aggression along the 38th parallel. Taken by surprise at these unexpected attacks, the army of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) fought courageously to defend the liberty of the country.

If you’re not living in North Korea right now, perhaps you have a clear preference between these two options.

But if you had the choice, would you really choose either one?

The problem with both is an obvious slant that encourages the reader to think about the conflict in black and white terms. A similar exercise could be developed around just about any conflict you can imagine from the past.

When we first published our title for our course on the history of Alaska, we included the following subtitle:

The History of Alaska: America’s Last Frontier

One social media user quickly raised an objection we appreciated:

Whose “Last Frontier?” The title already centers the colonization of Alaska and America’s extractive agenda for Alaska. This title is telling and disappointing. Whose history and perspective gets elevated in this course?

One way of reading this user’s question is as a suggestion to choose between biases—whose perspective do we choose to tell the story from? The different native perspectives, or the perspectives of those who didn’t show up in the territory until the 18th and 19th centuries?

However, like the North and South Korean coverage of the Korean War, limiting ourselves to these two options reduces our choice to one of two extremes. William Hensley, an Iñupiaq leader, politician, and activist framed the problem like this in a 1966 student paper that was significantly responsible for framing the terms of the debate that ultimately resulted in the passage of Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971:

“The problem is simply this: What are the rights of the Alaskan Natives to the property and resources upon which they have lived since time immemorial?
“Two extreme positions may be taken on this issue by those unacquainted with the legal complexities of the problem. The two positions are held by both Natives and non-Natives. One hold that the Alaska aborigine is simply a citizen of the United States and of Alaska with no more rights than any other citizens – therefore has no more right to land than Alaskan settlers arriving later. The opposing view holds that the Alaskan Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts – due to their habitation of and use of natural resources have an ‘aboriginal title’ to land and its products which cannot be deprived them without their consent.
“The problem is, of course, much more complex than is indicated above. It is politically volatile, an administrative tangle, and a judicial granny-knot which has been clouded by various opinions in courts at different levels.”

William Hensley, 1973

This characterization of the problem probably gets closer to the point of the social media user’s concern about elevating one story over another—when talking about the history of Alaska, the superficial approach is to play toward either extreme: to privilege the Russian or American points of view so much that we caricaturize the various native points of view, and to privilege the various native points of view so much that we caricaturize the Russian or American points of view. (Alternatively, to privilege coverage of the remote past over coverage the recent past, or to privilege the recent past over more remote parts of the story.)

It’s not surprising that school choice—between public schools, homeschools, private schools, charter schools, educational savings accounts, and everything between—is such a high priority for parents making decisions about how to educate their kids. In a 2019 survey by the National Center for Education Statistics, 79% of respondents listed teachers and staff as a top consideration, and 60% listed school curriculum and academics. Perhaps embedded in these criteria is a preference for teachers and curricula that avoid cartoonish histories that refuse to take the past seriously on its own terms.

To take the past seriously on its own terms and avoid self-serving conclusions even if they make us feel good is one objective of this course. Whether we’ve achieved that or not is up to you. Check it out now at our History of Alaska course overview page, including our slightly but significantly updated subtitle:

The History of Alaska: America’s Last Frontier?

Number of seats	Discount	Purchase per seat
1	—	$249
2–4	–25%	$186.75
5–9	–30%	$174.30
10–19	–35%	$161.85
20+	–40%	$149.40

Number of seats	Discount	Subscription per seat
1	—	$30 / month
2–4	–25%	$22.50 / month
5–9	–30%	$21 / month
10–19	–35%	$19.50 / month
20+	–40%	$18 / month

The Nomadic Blog

Featured image: Valdez, 1908

Blog Archive

Media Literacy Challenge #7: The Quiet Majority

Media Literacy Challenge #6: “Attention budget”

Media Literacy Challenge #5: “The medium is the message”

Media Literacy Challenge #4: Emotional reasoning

Media Literacy Challenge #3: Knowing your limits

Media Literacy Challenge #2: Corroboration

Media Literacy Challenge #1: Lateral reading

What kind of history does the Nomadic Professor do?

Q&A with The Nomadic Professor: Behind the Scenes on the American History series