Congress fails to agree on buying Alaska from the Tsar in 1867, and it remains Russian territory--what happens subsequently?
No major changes until the Alaska gold rush, I'd imagine. A new front for the cold war, perhaps. Russian threats of nuclear war become more "real" with such a forwards base, if they chose to use it as such.
Possible invasion of Alaska early in the years after WWII. Soviet gap in nuclear problam exploited, to present a diplomatic advantage. Only if the US acts quickly.
One interesting twist might be a Japanese invasion in 1904 and subsequent annexation. A starved, yet innovative Japan, along with German engineers might have found ways to tap into Alaska's great natural gas and crude reserves decades earlier. The wealth of natural resources might have completely changed the course of Japanese history or expedited the one we all know.
Good point, Prospero, and one which I admit I hadn't considered. It would have been possible for the Russians to have based a large Pacific fleet either in the Alutians (sp?) or in one of the harbours along the Alaskan coast--in other words, no need for a 10,000 mile journey from the Baltic to the Strait of Tsushima, they could have just sailed straight across the Pacific and raided the Japanese coast, or attacked the Japanese in their Chinese enclaves. Not to say that the result of the 1905 war would have been any different if they had, mind you. Also, given that the result of a Japanese victory might have meant the surrender of Russian Alaska to Japanese occupation and control, that might have given the US a major headache in 1941, in the event of a Pacific War.
Also, of course, the strategic and tactical considerations of a Japanese-occupied Alaska and Aleutians would have played on the minds (to put it mildly) of the American leadership, and influenced the decision-making in the 1930's after Japan went into China; on the other hand, if the Japanese were able to exploit Alaska's oil and gas fields, and make use also of the vast mineral wealth of Alaska, would they have felt the need to invade and conquer China in order to grab its resources?
There would be no alascattalos, "A hybrid of the moose and walrus with a flipper for a tail...According to local lore, the alascattalo was bred by miners during the Alaska Gold Rush back at the turn of the century. The miners needed a dumb, strong, waterproof workhorse to pull the ore carts out of the mines and the alascattalo was just the trick. An unforeseen bonus was that the tusk and pancreas were, according to historians, hot on the market. Since the days of the Gold Rush, the alascattalo has reproduced out of control but still remains strangely elusive to hunters and trappers." - Anchorage Press
