8 Times Alaskans Were Embarrassed To Be Alaskans

On October 4, 2001 Mr. Daniel Carson Lewis of Livengood shot the Trans-Alaska pipeline with a rifle. Then 285,600 gallons of petroleum shot 75 feet into the air and soaked the ground nearby for three days before they could get it under control. After concerns of terrorism, a state police spokesman said: "Alcohol and a guy with a gun--nothing deeper than that."

With a population of only 740,000 people and 8 seasons of the popular show, few communities have been safe from the prying eyes of the television camera. The Alaska State Troopers show has caught hundreds of people on camera at their worst moments. We can just hope their mothers aren't watching.

Jewel Kilcher, the famous musician, suddenly rose to fame in 1995 with her debut album: "Pieces of You." After saying in multiple interviews how she grew up in Homer in a cabin with an outhouse and played up her rustic roots, she cancelled her Alaska State Fair appearance in 1996 to go on tour with Neil Young. This was seen by many to be a sell-out move, then on New Year's Eve 2000, she again cancelled a concert. This time at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage where only 1000 of the 8000 tickets had sold for the show. Alaskans were embarrassed that Jewel made so much fuss in the media about being from the state, only to cancel shows back home. In recent years, she has claimed that she didn't know the shows were scheduled and seems to have made peace with the state.

Wasilla High School Students were addressed by U.S. Representative Don Young. On October 21, 2014, Anchorage Dispatch New reported: "Numerous witnesses say Young, 81, acted in a disrespectful and sometimes offensive manner to some students, (and) used profanity." It was embarassing.

Inevitably, buried somewhere in the fine print, lies the phrase: "*except Alaska and Hawaii." It always ends up with an argument where a customer service agent doesn't know why they can't ship to you, they just can't.

On December 25, 2016, the New York TImes reported: "The average from 2013 to 2015 for dangerous small-particle pollution, called PM 2.5, which can be deeply inhaled into the lungs, was by far the highest in the nation in North Pole, just southeast of Fairbanks, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency." The dirty air is attributed to the cold weather holding car exhaust and smoke from wood-burning stoves and boilers. Merry Christmas! *cough*couch* Read the article here.

From 2005-2015 members of the Alaskan congressional delegation pushed for Federal funding for a $398 million bridge in a small island town in Alaska. The Gravina Island Bridge, commonly referred to as the "Bridge to Nowhere", was a proposed bridge to replace the ferry that currently connects the town of Ketchikan with Gravina Island and the Ketchikan International Airport. This bridge was scheduled to be nearly as long as the Golden Gate Bridge which is 8,981 ft (2,737.4 m) long, and higher than the Brooklyn Bridge. It was singled out as an example of ridiculous government spending and eventually cancelled.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill happened in Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. An oil tanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company struck Bligh Reef at 12:04 am local time and spilled 10.8 million US gallons of crude oil. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters in world history. Oops.