Flag of Alaska

A contest for schoolchildren

In 1926 Alaska was a territory with no flag of its own, and its governor, George Parks, was campaigning for statehood. He persuaded the Alaska American Legion to run a flag-design contest open to students in grades 7 through 12. Local judges across the territory picked their ten best entries and sent them to Juneau, and by the deadline of March 1, 1927, there were 142 designs.

The judging panel chose the entry of Benny Benson unanimously. Benny was 13, a seventh grader at the Mission Territorial School near Seward, and he lived at the Jesse Lee Home, a children’s home. His design was simple: the Big Dipper and the North Star in gold on a field of blue.

Adopted by law, with the designer’s name

The territorial legislature adopted the design in an act approved May 2, 1927. The law is unusual in two ways. It names the designer in its text, and it explains the meaning of every part of the flag in language that reads like a poem: the blue is the evening sky, the sea, mountain lakes and Alaska’s wildflowers, and the gold is the precious metal hidden in its hills and streams. The act also ordered Benny’s original drawing to be kept in the Alaska Historical Museum.

The flag was raised for the first time on July 9, 1927, at a ceremony in Seward, where Benny received a watch and a $1,000 scholarship. When Alaska became a state in 1959, the territorial flag simply carried over: the statute provides that the flag of the Territory of Alaska is the official flag of the state.

What the stars mean

• The Big Dipper. Seven of the eight stars form the Big Dipper, part of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. Its two “pointer” stars aim at the eighth.
• Polaris. The North Star is the largest star on the flag. The law calls it a guide for mariners, explorers, hunters, trappers, prospectors, woodsmen and surveyors, and a symbol of Alaska as the most northerly state.
• Blue. The evening sky, the sea, mountain lakes and wildflowers. By law the blue must match the blue of the US flag.
• Gold. The color of natural gold, for Alaska’s mineral wealth.

Rules for the flag

Alaska’s statutes go further than most in telling people how to treat the flag. When it hangs horizontally in a public building, the North Star belongs in the upper right corner, and the law sets out an eight-step procedure for folding it. The flag also has its own song: “Alaska’s Flag,” with words by Marie Drake and music by Elinor Dusenbury, is the official state song.

Alaskans celebrate the flag’s first raising every July. July 9, 2027, will mark its hundredth anniversary.