You're living in a dream world; that idyllic Alaska never existed.   The National media was full of articles speculating as to whether Alaska would ever be anything other than a drain on the Federal Treasury.   We owe Statehood to Soviet anti-colonial pressure regarding US territories and the development of Swanson River giving some hope that Alaska wouldn't be a total financial basket case.   The roads were two-lane and about an axe-handle wide.   The only large buildings in downtown ANC when I got here in '74 were the Cook and the Westward.   Well, I guess the McKay and the one that is now the Inlet Inn or some such, school of Soviet Realism cast concrete monuments,  count as large buildings.   After approval to construct the Pipeline, the New Yorker sent writers here to do a piece and concluded that the people who built Anchorage should never be allowed to build anything again.