Collections from the University of Alaska: Maps. The Rare Map Collection at the Rasmuson Library contains thousands of maps that document the history of Alaska, from 16th century speculative cartography to the gold rush era. This selection of maps provides basic coverage of the mapping of Alaska, from the early voyages of discovery through the sale of Russian America to the United States and the gold rush. The maps depict the growth of geographic knowledge that resulted from the great expeditions of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,and also illustrate the carto-controversies that arose from various imagined geographies and fictitious voyages of discovery. A new map of the northeast coast of Asia, and the northwest coast of America, with the late Russian discoveries. London, 1757.