Dam It! Manipulating Water in the Tolovana Mining District, Alaska

Summary

Obtaining adequate water for mining operations has always been a problem in Livengood, Alaska. To make mining feasible on small creeks in the area, ditches were excavated from the earliest days of the strike in 1915. As the character of mining evolved throughout the first half of the 20th century, corporate interests formed to create even larger water conveyance systems, most notably the Hess Creek Dam, a sizable earthen dam built on permafrost. This poster presents an overview of the water control infrastructure spread across the historic mining landscape of Livengood as revealed through archival research and recent archaeological surveys.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage