[1] Like other Michener titles, Alaska spans a considerable amount of time, traced through the gradual interlinking of several families.

The plot of this chapter follows the mastodons, sabre-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths as they make their way into Alaska via the land bridge.

At the end of the chapter, Michener states that Christianity won over shamanism, but in the process, the population of native people dwindled from more than 18,000 to fewer than 1,200.

The events are shown through the eyes of a native named Raven-heart and an Arkady Voronov, the son of Father Vornov and Sofia Kuchovskaya (formerly Cidaq).

The chapter also explains the death of Alexander Baranov and ends with the purchase of Alaska by the United States of America.

Meanwhile, Reverend Sheldon Jackson, a missionary, travels to Alaska to further establish it as a state, with the help of Senator Benjamin Harrison.

The eighth chapter tells of the chaos surrounding the Alaskan gold rush using the fictitious Venn family and a prospector named John Klope.

Nancy Bigears, knows the romance cannot continue because Tom Venn is unable to comprehend the fishing rights and salmon conservancy issues created by his cannery.

In 1919, a government official arrives in a small town of Minnesota made up of immigrants of Swedish and Finnish descent, as well as those who have been in the United States for several generations.

He recruits a group of families to move to Alaska and settle in the Matanuska Valley, where they will be provided with land that they will not begin to pay on for at least three years, as long as they promise to farm.

LeRoy Flatch grows up to become a bush pilot and Flossie is an animal lover who falls in love with a local "half-breed" man of white and Eskimo descent.

Missy remains on the side advocating for statehood, while Tom Venn petitioned to keep Alaska a territory and under Seattle business control.

[7][8] Kirkus Reviews was lukewarm about the novel, describing the characters as puppets and that the historical framework of the book lacked rigor and substance.