Bridges to Statehood, the Alaska-Yugoslav Connection

Celebrating Alaska’s 50-year statehood anniversary, Bridges to Statehood features 

the last territorial governor, Mike Stepovich. 

Over the Chilkoot Trail’s icy steps, these immigrants came—Stepovich, Butrovich, Dapcevich, Begich, 

Paskvan, and Peratrovich—to guide Alaska from a raw land to statehood, from southeast to the arctic, from 

gold camps to the forty-ninth star! Names so Alaskan that their Slavic stories went untold, they represented the 

world’s former empires and today’s Balkan states and shaped all of Alaska. 395 pages with maps, timeline, and 

historic photos on every page. Celebrating Alaska’s 50-year statehood anniversary, Bridges to Statehood 

features not only the last territorial governor Mike Stepovich and the longest serving territorial and state senator 

John Butrovich as well as Balkan pioneers throughout all of Alaska. Bridges to Statehood is Alaska, from 

mining to fishing, from fur to bars, from retail to sports, from aviation to politics. Bridges includes the building of 

the Alaska Highway, bringing communication to the Great Land, and the Alaska state constitutional convention. 

This is a book celebrating Alaska’s fiftieth anniversary of statehood and told by the talented immigrants who 

shaped Alaska. Two books in one, Bridges has a short international story of former Yugoslavia through the 

Hajdukovichs, Stepovichs, Mellicks as well as Ferguson's friends, portraiting the evolution of "the Balkan

powder keg," told firsthand by those who lived it. Ferguson brings the story back to Alaska with Nedjo Spaic of 

Palmer, Alaska: a global personal story of Alaska and the Balkans. 

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