Tagged: Fairbanks

1915 Tanana Chiefs Conference was one of the first steps toward Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act

1915 Tanana Chiefs Conference was one of the first steps toward Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act

On July 5 and 6, 1915, one of the precursors to the 1971 meeting of Alaska Native elders to discuss the pending Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was held in Fairbanks, in the George...

Small draglines like this were once common at placer gold-mining operations. They were used for excavating and for loading elevated sluice boxes.

P&H dragline at Pioneer Park represents early 1900s industrial innovation

When gold was discovered in Alaska at the end of the 19th century, it was individual miners who initially exploited the resource using picks and shovels and other rudimentary equipment. As easy diggings disappeared,...

SS Nenana’s $3 million restoration project starts this summer

This article is reprinted from the 1-14-2022 edition of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Photo and story by Amanda Bohman A 237-foot wooden steam-powered sternwheeler with five decks that was famous for plying Interior Alaska...

Phillips Field served Fairbanks aviation community’s needs for 40 years

Phillips Field served Fairbanks aviation community’s needs for 40 years

During Fairbanks’ post-World War II population boom, development pressure forced the relocation of the community’s airport, Weeks Field. The airport, less than a mile from downtown, moved eight miles farther away, to its present...

The Tolovana Tram, early Livengood’s jury-rigged transport system

Jay Livengood and Teddy Hudson discovered gold in the headwaters of the Tolovana River in 1914, leading to a minor gold rush in 1915. The resulting camp (eventually named Livengood) was remote, even though...

Fairbanks – 12-27-2021 – Out my back door after the storm

We had a major storm roll through Interior Alaska over the weekend – almost 2′ of snow, followed by temperatures near 40 degrees F above 0, rain and wind. Everything is now coated with...

Tall caches were once common in Alaska

Tall cache that used to stand at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks In modern Alaska, elevated storage caches (sometimes called fish or bear caches) typically consist of small rustic log cabins built atop four canted...

Fairbanks Aeromedical Lab was a Cold War program to study the Arctic

  The Arctic Aeromedical Lab building in Fairbanks, now the Fairbanks offices for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.   Alaska has been a U.S. possession since 1867. However,...

Ester studio evokes memory of painter, Rusty Heurlin

Rusty Heurlin’s studio in Ester in the early winter of 2017 The cabin in the drawing was the studio for Alaska painter, Magnus Colcord “Rusty” Heurlin. Matthew Reckard, the artist’s neighbor, recently showed me...

Fairbanks looks back on anniversary of Masonic Temple loss

This is a reprint of Kris Capps column in this morning’s edition of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner newspaper.To see the column I wrote eight years ago about the Masonic Temple click here. Two years...