Centered in Fairbanks, the Golden Heart City of Interior Alaska, our council has a history and tradition dating from 1925, thirty-four years before Alaska became the 49th state. Jessie Bloom, our founder, had been a Girl Guide in Dublin. Enthusiastically, she turned a seven-girl sewing class into our first troop. Today, in gratitude, we honor her vision-in-action by naming our local two-week summer resident camp Camp “Jessie Bloom.”

The Farthest North Girl Scout Council serves the largest geographical area of any of the more than 300 Girl Scout Councils in the United States serving everything from the 63^rd parallel north of the Alaska range, which is more than 350,000 square miles. Our jurisdiction covers an area larger than Oklahoma and Texas combined.

The Farthest North Girl Scout Council, formerly called the Fairbanks Girl Scout Council was started in 1925 by a handful of girls in Fairbanks headed by Jessie Bloom. Girl Scouting expanded to rural Alaska in 1945 with the establishment of the first troop in Nome.  Because many of the girls did not speak English, they learned the Girl Scout Promise in Eskimo and English.

By 1947 the Fairbanks Girl Scout Council became a member of the  National Council of Girl Scouts. Camp Clegg was acquired in 1949 and became the Council’s summer camp; and a troop was organized in Fort Yukon in 1949 and in Point Barrow in 1950.

In 1952, the Farthest North Girl Scout Council was formed and incorporated with 400 girls and 90 adults. The following year the first full-time executive director was hired. By 1957 there were 100 troops with more than 1,000 girls in the Farthest North Girl Scout Council, which is approximately the size we are today.

Fairbanks Girl Scout Troop from the 1930s.  The photo was taken on what we think is First Avenue in Downtown Fairbanks.  This photo was brought into our Council from a local who’s great aunt is in the photo.  We have a rich and long history that we are very proud of!