COLLEGE STUDENTS
REHAB, DRUGS & ALCOHOL
In JUNEAU ALASKA

The City and Borough of Juneau, more commonly known simply as Juneau ( JOO-noh; Tlingit: Dzánti K'ihéeni Athapascan pronunciation: [ˈtsʌ́ntʰɪ̀ kʼɪ̀ˈhíːnɪ̀]), is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alaska, located in the Gastineau Channel and the Alaskan panhandle. Juneau was named the capital of Alaska in 1906, when the government of what was then the District of Alaska was moved from Sitka as dictated by the U.S. Congress in 1900. On July 1, 1970, the City of Juneau merged with the City of Douglas and the surrounding Greater Juneau Borough to form the current consolidated city-borough, which ranks as the second-largest municipality in the United States by area and is larger than both Rhode Island and Delaware. Downtown Juneau is nestled at the base of Mount Juneau and it is across the channel from Douglas Island. As of the 2020 census, the City and Borough had a population of 32,255, making it the third-most populous city in Alaska after Anchorage and Fairbanks. Juneau experiences a daily influx of 6,000 people or more from visiting cruise ships between the months of May and September. The city is named after a gold prospector from Quebec, Joe Juneau, although it was once called Rockwell and then Harrisburg (after Juneau's co-prospector, Richard Harris). The Tlingit name of the town is Dzántik'i Héeni ("Base of the Flounder's River", dzánti 'flounder,' –kʼi 'base,' héen 'river'), and Auke Bay just north of Juneau proper is called Áak'w ("Little lake", áa 'lake,' -kʼ 'diminutive') in Tlingit. The Taku River, just south of Juneau, was named after the cold t'aakh wind, which occasionally blows down from the mountains. Juneau is unique among the 49 U.S. capitals on mainland North America in that there are no roads connecting the city to the rest of the state or North America. Honolulu, Hawaii, is the only other state capital which is not connected by road to the rest of North America. The absence of a road network is due to the extremely rugged terrain surrounding the city. In turn Juneau is a de facto island city in terms of transportation; all goods coming in and out must be transported by plane or boat, in spite of the city's location on the Alaskan mainland. Downtown Juneau sits at sea level with tides averaging 16 feet (5 m), below steep mountains about 3,500 to 4,000 feet (1,100 to 1,200 m) high. Atop the mountains is the Juneau Icefield, a large ice mass from which about 30 glaciers flow; two of them, the Mendenhall Glacier and the Lemon Creek Glacier, are visible from the local road system. The Mendenhall Glacier has been gradually retreating; its front face is declining in width and height. The Alaska State Capitol in downtown Juneau was built as the Federal and Territorial Building in 1931. Prior to statehood, it housed federal government offices, the federal courthouse, and a post office. It also housed the territorial legislature and other territorial offices, including that of the governor. Today, Juneau is the home of the state legislature and the offices of the governor and lieutenant governor. Some executive branch offices have moved certain functions to Anchorage and elsewhere in the state .

Alaska ( ə-LASS-kə) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. It borders the Canadian province of British Columbia and the Yukon territory to the east; it shares a western maritime border in the Bering Strait with Russia's Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. The Chukchi and Beaufort Seas of the Arctic Ocean lie to the north and the Pacific Ocean lies to the south. Technically a semi-exclave of the U.S., it is the largest exclave in the world. Alaska is the largest U.S. state by area, comprising more total area than the next three largest states of Texas, California and Montana combined, and is the seventh-largest subnational division in the world. It is the third-least populous and most sparsely populated U.S. state, but is, with a population of 736,081 as of 2020, the continent's most populous territory located mostly north of the 60th parallel, with more than quadruple the combined populations of Northern Canada and Greenland. The state contains the second-largest and largest cities in the United States by area: the state capital of Juneau, and its former capital, Sitka, respectively. The state's most populous city is Anchorage and approximately half of Alaska's residents live within its metropolitan area. Indigenous people have lived in Alaska for thousands of years, and it is widely believed that the region served as the entry point for the initial settlement of North America by way of the Bering land bridge. The Russian Empire was the first to actively colonize the area beginning in the 18th century, eventually establishing Russian America, which spanned most of the current state, and promoted and maintained a native Alaskan Creole population. The expense and logistical difficulty of maintaining this distant possession prompted its sale to the U.S. in 1867 for US$7.2 million (equivalent to $157 million in 2023). The area went through several administrative changes before becoming organized as a territory on May 11, 1912. It was admitted as the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959. Abundant natural resources have enabled Alaska—with one of the smallest state economies—to have one of the highest per capita incomes, with commercial fishing, and the extraction of natural gas and oil, dominating Alaska's economy. U.S. Armed Forces bases and tourism also contribute to the economy; more than half the state is federally-owned land containing national forests, national parks, and wildlife refuges. It is among the most irreligious states, one of the first to legalize recreational marijuana, and is known for its libertarian-leaning political culture, generally supporting the Republican Party in national elections. The Indigenous population of Alaska is proportionally the second highest of any U.S. state, at over 15 percent, after only Hawaii.