The Inupiat people have known about oil in the northern region of Alaska for hundreds of years. They have used the gas and the oil to heat up their homes. Oil was discovered in the area by the U.S. government in the 1900's. They also found underground gas. The federal government reserved 37,000 square miles of land for drilling later. Nobody cared about the oil in the Arctic until World War II when the U.S. Navy started to use the gas and oil in the Arctic. Prudhoe Bay was discovered by oil companies in the Arctic along the coast of the Beaufort Sea in 1968. Some professionals said that it was the largest oil field found in North America.

A pipeline had to be built to carry oil from Prudhoe Bay to the Valdez port. It is 800 miles long. The Dalton Highway was a road built so the workers could carry supplies north to build the pipeline. The pipeline brought new technologies to the North Slope.