They tried mailings, launched a multimillion-dollar national ad campaign , hired tens of thousands of people -- they even tried a totem pole.
The $20,000 totem pole art project was commissioned by the Census Bureau with a local Alaskan artist and meant to incorporate both native Alaskan symbols with the spirit of the census and help engage the disparate and hard-to-count communities of America's largest state.
The totem didn't work
Data provided by the Census Bureau shows that Alaska's mail-in response rate actually was lower this year than in 2000.
