Early cultures in what is now Alaska included the Tuniit (Dorset), Thule and Inuit. Among the Native American tribes who have lived in the area are the Aleut, Chinook, Eyak, Haida an Tsimshian, Inupiat, Tillamook, Tlingit, and Yupik.

Vitus Bering of Denmark and Alexei Chirikoff of Russia explored the Aleutian Islands and some of the mainland in 1741. Georg Steller, a naturalist sailing with Bering (who had been commissioned by Russian Czar Peter the Great), went ashore, becoming the first known European to set foot in what is now Alaska. Also in the area at this time were explorers from France, Great Britain (James Cook and George Vancouver), and Spain (Juan Perez).

In 1784, Grigorii Shelikov of Russia established the first permanent European settlement, at Three Saints Bay, Kodiak. Shelikov had brought with him missionaries from the Russian Orthodox Church.

A dispute over land claims between Great Britain and Spain nearly led to war. The Nootka Crisis of 1789 was resolved peacefully, resulting in both countries' having access to the coast for trading.

European control of Alaska was largely in the hands of Russia, which developed a fur trade with Native Americans. At the end of the 18th Century, the Russian trader Alexander Baranov set up the trading post now known as Old Sikta, which was then operated exclusively by the Russian American Company, run by Shelikov's son-in-law, Nikolay Rezanov.

In the first of several skirmishes between Europeans and Native Americans, Tlingit warriors destroyed the Old Sikta fort in 1802; Baranov was back two years later to rebuild it. A year later, the Russian trader Yurii Lisianski took the first shipment of Russian furs to China.

In the 1820s, Russian explorers began exploring inland. They found the Koyukuk, Kuskokwim, Nushagak, and Yukon Rivers. They found deposits of coal and oil. Not to be outdone, the Hudson's Bay Company of Great Britain built Fort Yukon in 1847.

Russia and the U.S. first discussed a transfer of ownership in 1859. The Alaska Purchase later was derisively labeled "Seward's Folly," after U.S. Secretary of State William Seward, who had arranged the deal. The outbreak of the Civil War delayed things a bit, and the former takeover didn't take place until Oct. 18, 1867 (now called Alaska Day). The Treaty of Purchase was signed on March 30 of that year, the Senate approved the treaty on April 9, and President Andrew Johnson signed it on May 28. However, it took a few more months for everything to be in place for the handover, which took place at Sitka.

Because of its prominence from Russian times, Sitka was the first capital and the location of some of the first businesses. St. Michael's Cathedral was built there in 1848. The first newspaper printed in Alaska, the Alaska Times, began in 1869. The area population grew as well after the discovery of gold in 1872.

The area was known initially as the Department of Alaska and was patrolled by the U.S. Military for a decade. During that time, explorers found a few small deposits of gold, including the Parris Lode, in 1881, which led to the creation of the Treadwell Mine. Lt. Frederick Schwatka led a military survey of the length of the Yukon River, and Lt. Henry Allen explored the Copper River. Another well-known survey was the Harriman Expedition, a two-month expedition, financed by railroad tycoon Edward Harriman, that covered 9,000 miles through the interior of the territory. A more vertical exploration took place in 1910, as the Sourdough Expedition, a team of miners and climbers, were the first to reach the summit of Mount McKinley (now Denali). Congress in 1917 created Mount McKinley National Park.

Fishing and canning became big businesses. Settlers built canneries at Klawock and Sitka in 1878, and commercial herring fishing began at Kilisnoo four years later. Large corporate salmon canneries followed soon afterward.

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