Anchorage Daily News

JUNEAU -- Alaska's governor wanted to find out what the rest of the nation thinks about their neighbor to the north, so he commissioned a pop quiz.

If it had been a relationship test found in the pages of a glossy magazine, the "Lower 48" would have found itself taking its hurt partner out for a nice dinner to make up for the low score.

The results of the poll show Americans love Alaska, but they don't know a whole lot about it.

More than half the nation thinks most of Alaska is covered in ice and snow year round. One out of every eight Americans believes the Last Frontier is a separate country or else doesn't know that it's a state.

Just 14 percent of those polled had ever been to Alaska, but nine out of every 10 said they had a positive impression of the state. Most cited its natural beauty and vast space.

The nation holds a romantic notion of Alaskans. Most described the people who live here as adventurous, rugged pioneers who like their freedom and the wilderness.

"There is still a mystique associated with Alaska. A lot of it has to do with the misperceptions," said Anchorage pollster Dave Dittman, whose firm conducted the poll. "If they knew more about what the reality was, it would probably be better for us."

The poll was commissioned by Gov. Frank Murkowski amid fears that two congressional debates last year had muddied Alaska's image: Whether federal earmarks should go to build two "bridges to nowhere" and the failed effort to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling.

"I think we were concerned after the big debate over earmarks ... that Alaskans would be tarred with a pretty black brush," Murkowski spokesman John Manly said. "It turned out that people in the rest of the country have a pretty positive view of Alaska."

Three out of every hundred people polled had a negative perception of the state's residents, calling them "greedy," "strange," "suspicious" or "depressed."

The first words that come to mind when asked about Alaska tend to be "cold, "snow" and "ice," according to the poll results. Five percent of Alaska is covered by glaciers, ice and snow, but 60 percent of those polled guessed that half to nearly all of the state is a frozen wasteland all year.

Alaska became a state in 1959, but 5 percent of those polled believe it is still a territory. Four percent said Alaska is a separate country, and 2 percent said it is a commonwealth. One in every hundred said they did not know what Alaska's status is.

Lower 48ers did better when it came to estimating the size of Alaska. More than a third gave the right answer, that the state is about one-fifth the size of the contiguous 48 states.

But they were all over the map when it came to guessing how many people actually live here. As many people put the population under 250,000 as did those who said it was up to 2 million. A quarter of people who responded said they didn't know. The actual number is 665,000, which 15 percent got right.

When asked to make a choice between developing Alaska's energy resources or protecting the state's environment, 59 percent chose protecting the environment. Thirty-seven percent said developing the resources.

At the same time, slightly more than half the people polled said ANWR should be opened for oil and gas exploration and 42 percent were against it.

A majority of the nation believes most Alaskans are opposed to opening ANWR, according to the poll, when in fact the opposite is true.

"The most important misperception is that Alaskans are opposed to ANWR," Dittman said. "They think they are defending us."

The poll of 1,500 people was conducted in May and has a margin of error of 2.6 percent. The results were released to The Associated Press on Monday by the governor's office.

The respondents included nearly equal numbers of people who call themselves Republicans, Democrats or independents. They were split by region: 21 percent were from the Northeast, 21 percent the Midwest, 35 percent the South and 23 percent the West.

The poll was followed up by a series of focus groups in different parts of the country, in which "opinion leaders" -- defined as influential people ranging from newspaper letter writers to political activists -- were used to elaborate on the responses, Dittman said.

Murkowski said he and the state's congressional delegation wanted to use the results for a marketing campaign to boost the state's image and open ANWR. But voters tossed Murkowski out in the Aug. 22 primary, and the governor has no plans to enter the next phase of the project, Manly said.

Common Outside misperceptions of Alaska

• ICEBOX: More than half of all Americans believe most of Alaska is frozen year-round.

• DRILLING: Most believe most Alaskans are opposed to opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration.

• STATEHOOD: Five percent think Alaska is still a territory. Four percent believe it is another country.

• ONLINE: Visit adn.com to post your thoughts on the Lower 48's view of Alaska, based on results from the Alaska Image poll.