For Alaska, a Remarkably Tumultuous Year

It has been a remarkably tumultuous year here as Alaska celebrates its 50th anniversary of statehood. Sure, Ms. Palin roared out of sub-Arctic obscurity, but there was more: state lawmakers went to prison for corruption and then, in some cases, got out; a sitting United States senator was found guilty of a felony, at least temporarily; the ultimate measure of government stability here, the price of oil, went into freefall, then rose again.

“Will things return to normal?” said Scott Goldsmith, a professor of economics at the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute for Social and Economic Research. “The thing is, they’ve never been normal up here.”