The imagined aerial tram operating between Anchorage and Seward’s Success. (Images from Popular Science, March 1970.)

In 1867 the United States bought Alaska from Russia. The initiative for the acquisition had come from the Secretary of State, William H. Seward and initially the critics had proclaimed the project Seward’s Folly. A hundred years later, the plan to build a utopian city near Anchorage was named Seward’s Success, as if there was a need to prove wrong those who were still in doubt.

The idea was to encase an entire city of 5,000 people inside a climate-controlled dome, where temperature would be set to 20 °C (68 °F) all year round. Business, work, living and shopping would all happen comfortably ignorant of the Alaskan climate. Even visitors arriving to Northern latitudes wouldn’t have to feel cold since a monorail would provide a direct transport from the airport to the city. The works on site started in 1970, but like with so many plans of the era, financial realities came to play, and with the oil crisis of 1973 the project was finally buried.

The case of Seward’s Success is perhaps intriguing especially because it was a very Northern urban utopia. While Soviet Union had similar plans for arctic regions, they were be presented as cities for scientific exploration, industry, manufacture, for the sake of keeping the magnificent state inhabited on all corners. The American version was a little different. Seward’s Success was certainly more Disney, but also about man’s will to live where he wants to, the idea of conquering the forces of nature, through fabulous displays of modern comforts and leisurely ways of living even in improbable geographical locations.

(Source: books.google.com.hk)