Saturday, January 06, 2007

Alaska Natives Left Out in the Cold

Re: histarch "good account of cultural-ecological system/connections in alaska as a result of "climate change" Other areas may also be in trouble. I worked for the US Dept. of Interior's Denver Service Center (cut dramatically then by the former Reagan administration) in historical archaeology in the summer of 1980 while the town was being debated and restored in part to its Victorian era look (nothing painted white probably and many from paint "excavation" (scraping) studies most assuredly not) and the vehicle road opening to White Horse, Yukon, have in a recent reading online about the historic Klondike Gold Rush boat, road, trail, rail terminus, Skagway, Alaska, found out it is actually below sea level. I'm not sure if it was in 1980, but there are many nearby glacial fields overhanging precipice that could create more problems of erosion and flooding for there and perhaps other indirect effects on the nearby State Capital, Juneau, a 100 mile "Denver" glacier and field in between. The other "twin" town Dyea was never settled, not on the Whitepass and Yukon narrow gauge railroad and said to be often subject to flooding. I wonder if it would make a good study "unit". Further to A response to an archaeologist's response to "Apocalypto" : In light of the developments of the "Manhattan Project" and the support structures and sites placement on the US National Register (though perhaps given US "sovereign nation" stated status on some (or all?) reservations they should perhaps be UNESCO international sites, also an international effort, including reports of enriched uranium captured from Germany) it should be noted that, according to declassified material released circa 1978, that some railroad boxcars were listed as "turquoise" ore in bills of lading and perhaps labeled as such, that had actually contained uranium ore. Apparently also a problem on some reservations as people excavated it without protection from said ore.

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