Alyeska is an archaic spelling of the Aleut word Alaska meaning "mainland", "great country", or "great land". The American state of Alaska derives its name from this word. Alyeska is related to the word Unalaska (or Ounalashka) from the same root. Alyeska, in loose translation, also means "the object towards which the action of the sea is directed," or "that which the seas breaks against." An alpine ski area developed in the early 1960s near Girdwood took the name "Alyeska" and, in following years, the developing neighborhood of ski cabins, condominiums, and supporting facilities built an unincorporated community using the name. Located about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Anchorage (in the Municipality of Anchorage), Alyeska Resort at Mount Alyeska is a few miles northeast of Girdwood, a town alongside the Seward Highway that was largely abandoned after the 1964 Alaska earthquake lowered its elevation below the high tide levels of Cook Inlet, causing the town to move to a new site 3 miles (4.8 km) inland, absorbing the Alyeska community into Girdwood.

Eric Richard Porter (8 April 1928 – 15 May 1995) was an English actor of stage, film and television.

Porter was born in Shepherd's Bush, London, to Richard John Porter and Phoebe Elizabeth Spall. He was educated at Wimbledon Technical College before making his stage debut in Cambridge in 1945 at the age of 17.

In 1955, he played the title role in Ben Jonson's Volpone at the Bristol Old Vic. In 1960 he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company; that year, he played Ferdinand in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. In 1962, his performed as Iachimo in Cymbeline. Other roles included Ulysses, Macbeth, Leontes, Malvolio, Shylock, King Lear and Henry IV, as well as Barabas in Marlowe's Jew of Malta.

Porter's was seen as the tortured solicitor Soames Forsyte in the BBC drama The Forsyte Saga (1967). For this role he won a BAFTA Best Actor award.

He played The Jewel in the Crown; he was also seen as Fagin in the 1985 BBC version of Oliver Twist and as Professor Moriarty opposite Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes in Granada Television's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes stories The Red-Headed League and The Final Problem (both 1985). He also played Polonius in a 1980 television production of Hamlet, made as part of the BBC Shakespeare series, and starring Derek Jacobi in the title role.