| Summary: | More than six thousand years after humans reputedly first reached the North America continent by land, Vitus Bering led a Russian expedition aboard two ships to explore Alaska in 1741. Four decades later, Captain James Cook arrived by boat to map Alaska’s extensive coastline for Great Britain. Soon thereafter, intrepid Russian colonialists sailed from Siberia to establish the first European settlement on Kodiak Island, and almost 30,000 adventurous goldseekers disembarked from steamships in 1897 in transit to the Yukon and Klondike mines. Today, almost one million visitors reach Alaska by boat each year during the brief summer season (May-September). Though many come aboard ferries of the state’s famed Alaska Marine Highway System, most sail on one of 32 vessels owned by twelve cruise lines that now ply the inland waters of Alaska and the Canadian Pacific – and their popularity is growing almost exponentially.
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