The vast size and sparce population of the US State of Alaska have long presented a spectrum of reliability and economic challenges for electricity supply. The long, thin backbone “Railbelt” power system connects and serves the state’s major population centers over vast distances. Hundreds of electrical islands, including some physical islands, serve more remote communities. Reliability considerations can have extreme human factors, with sustained outages being life-threatening in some communities that experience extreme cold and complete transportation isolation for extended periods. As with many island systems, liquid fossil fuels have high costs. In some places, the handling and transport costs are extreme. Today, these factors provide strong economic motivation to use renewable resources. But even before the modern era of rapid VER growth, Alaska adopted a variety of cutting edge inverter-based technologies for economy and reliability. Of particular interest now, multiple battery energy storage projects were built in the state in the 1990s. This lecture will examine the history and motivations for some of the projects, and then delve into the particulars of the 1st generation grid-forming inverters and controls used in the Metlakatla Power & Light BESS. This project included many of the features that now, nearly 30 years later, are identified as crucial for success.