Anchorage Daily News

WASHINGTON - President Obama will make his first-ever visit to Alaska next week, on Veterans Day, as part of a multi-day journey to Japan, China, South Korea and Singapore.

The president will stop Wednesday at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage to refuel Air Force One. While in Alaska, he'll mark the Veterans Day holiday with the military personnel at the base, the White House said.

His stopover in Alaska will come after the White House Veterans Day breakfast and a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. The White House described the Elmendorf stop as "an event with the men and women of our Armed Forces," and said that more details would be released in the coming days. It's not clear whether the event will be open to the public.

It is the president's first trip ever to Alaska. Obama never made it to the 49th state during the 2008 campaign, and before the primary election last year, he told the Anchorage Daily News that he had not yet been to Alaska.

But Thursday at a conference of tribal leaders in Washington, he hinted that he wanted to visit Alaska soon, although perhaps in better weather.

"If you ever decide you want to get away from it all, come see one of us," Bill Martin, an Alaska Federation of Natives board member told the president.

"I often want to get away from it all. So I'm very much looking forward to visiting Alaska," Obama replied, adding later that "when I do visit Alaska, it's going to be during the summer."

Most presidents eventually make their way to Alaska via a refueling stop at either Elmendorf or Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks. It's almost always as part of a trip to or from Asia.

President Bill Clinton stopped at Elmendorf on Veterans Day 1994 and gave a speech to military personnel, and also appeared at a reception at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. In 2000, he stopped in Alaska on his way home from the first visit to Vietnam by an American president since the Vietnam War. President George H.W. Bush stopped on his way home from Asia in 1989. Most recently, George W. Bush refueled at Eielson in a ceremony attended by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin just weeks before she was tapped as Republican Sen. John McCain's running mate.

But perhaps the most notable presidential stop in Alaska was in May 1984, when President Ronald Reagan -- in the midst of his re-election campaign and on his way home from China -- refueled in Fairbanks and met with Pope John Paul II.

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