Governor John Strong was a charter member of the Juneau Men's Igloo.

Strong was born in Salmon Creek, New Brunswick, Canada on October 15, 1856. He graduated from the New Brunswick Normal School in 1874. After graduation he spent the next fourteen years working as a store owner and teacher throughout the province.

On December 31, 1879 he married Elizabeth A. Aitkens of Fredericton, New Brunswick. The marriage produced three children.

Major Strong was a newspaper man by profession. He had been identified with newspapers in Spokane, Bellingham, Seattle, and Tacoma for many years.

In 1896 he married Miss Anna Hall of Seattle, and the next year, 1897, the couple went north to Skagway, the gateway to the Klondike goldfields.

His objective point was the Klondike, but Skagway was booming in those days and he was soon engaged in writing editorials for an embryo newspaper that had been started there.

“Soapy” Smith and his gang reigned supreme at that time, and the law-abiding citizens were beginning to make a noise like they intended to do something to remedy the evils then rampant. What was needed was editorial support on the part of a newspaper. With Major Strong at the helm, that need was adequately supplied.

An emissary of “Soapy” called on the Major and made a proposition. He said that if the Major would “lay off” he
was authorized to say that a hundred dollar bill would be found on the Major’s editorial desk each and every morning. But nothing doing. The editorial attack on the Smith gang only increased in vigor. The result is well known to all old-timers.

In 1899, Major and Mrs. Strong headed for the Klondike. The Major tried prospecting for a while but had no luck. He was soon in newspaper work again, on the Dawson News.

In 1899, he went to Nome, where in the early spring of 1900, he established the Nome Nugget which he ran
successfully for many years.

Leaving Nome, the Major established a newspaper in Iditarod; then went to Katalla and started a newspaper there, and later came outside and established a paper in a mining camp in Arizona.

The call of the North soon found him back in Alaska, where he founded the Alaska Daily Empire in November 1912. He sold this newspaper when he was appointed governor under the Wilson administration.

President Woodrow Wilson nominated Strong to become Governor of Alaska Territory on April 17, 1913. The nomination was in keeping with a 1912 Democratic plank calling for territorial governors to be area residents. The new governor was sworn into office on May 21, 1913.

Soon after becoming governor, Strong was faced with a financial crisis. The territory's salmon canneries, claiming the recently enacted tax on canned salmon was illegal, refused to pay. The tax was a major source of income for the territory and the lack of funds thus created severely limited Strong's ability to implement development projects. This issue continued until after the governor left office.

Significant legislation signed into law by Governor Strong included the granting of United States citizenship to members of the indigenous population that gave up tribal life, implementation of workers' compensation, and the United States' first old age pension, authorization of a territorial university, and creation of a Board of Education.

Additionally, in 1917, the voters in the territory approved a prohibition referendum. Other changes affecting the territory were the authorization for construction of the Alaska Railroad in October 1914, loosening of federal controls on road building and coal mining, and creation of Mount McKinley National Park in 1917.

President Wilson declined to reappoint Strong to a second term as governor and his final day in office came in April 1918. According to U.S. Senator, and Alaskan history expert, Ernest Gruening this was because the President has been given information indicating the Canadian-born Strong had never been naturalized as a United States Citizen.

J.F.A. Strong died in Seattle, Washington, July 27, 1929.

Biographies of Alaska-Yukon Pioneers 1850-1950, Volume 2 p 309-310, by Ed Ferrell (May 1, 2009
Biographies of Alaska-Yukon Pioneers 1850-1950, Volume 3 p 282-283, by Ed Ferrell (May 1, 2009

John Franklin Alexander Strong (October 15, 1856 – July 27, 1929) was a British North America-born journalist who was the second governor of Alaska Territory from 1913 to 1918.

John Franklin Alexander Strong was born in Salmon Creek,^{[citation needed]} a small farming community in Queens County, New Brunswick, British North America on October 15, 1856, the son of Adam Robert and Janet (Nicholl) Strong. He graduated from the New Brunswick Normal School in 1874. After graduation he spent the next fourteen years working as a store owner and teacher throughout the province. On December 31, 1879, he married Elizabeth A. Aitkens of Fredericton, New Brunswick. The marriage produced three children: Jane, Elizabeth, and Robert. He committed bigamy^[1] in 1896 when he wed Anna Hall of Tacoma, Washington.^[2]