Gates of the Arctic Gaunt Beauty ... Tenuous Life Historic Resource Study for Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve

This Historic Resources Study is part of a multi-year, interdisciplinary Cultural Resources Inventory for Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, performed under project direction of archeologist Michael L. Kunz. The inventory was programmed and funded by the National Park Service as an essential element of the planning process for the new park.

The project began with archeological surveys in 1983. Most of the historical research, field work, and writing was accomplished in 1984 and 1985. After delays caused by the author's intervening assignments to other tasks, this study now joins the four volumes of draft archeological reports prepared by Mike Kunz and his stalwart crew.

This work is offered as a functional document for the park in terms of: (1) recordation and evaluation of historic sites, and (2) narrative development of historical themes useful for historic site context and interpretation of the park story. Beyond these functional uses, it is the hope of the author that park employees' exposure to the narrative history will enrich their experiences in the park and make them attuned to the resources and neighbors they must work with.

The author apologizes for the length of this study, but is not unduly apologetic. No comprehensive history had heretofore been done on this remote region. Thus the historical narrative had to build from the ground up, without benefit of prior syntheses, using many original sources. The nature of the history in this region—multi-cultural, anecdotal, and subject to severe variations of activity and decline—also militated against shortcuts. Lacking in this isolated, underpopulated part of the world were the structural frames and social progressions that allow generalization. People and events shone forth here that would be lost in the shuffle Outside. Nearly everyone and everything was unique. Finally, the author has violated hoary historical canons by quoting at length from original sources—particularly Native accounts, narratives of early exploration and enterprise, and the works of Robert Marshall. There were several connected reasons for this. People working in wilderness can't carry whole libraries with them—even if they could, find copies of the rare and scattered documents that fueled so much of the narrative. And it seemed important, in a place that still beckons to the spirit and discovery, that original perceptions of homeland people and early discoverers not be filtered. Feelings, spiritual associations, adventure, and poetry—all richly exhibited in the quoted material—suffer in paraphrase. This study is, therefore, partly an anthology of original literature that most readers otherwise would never see.

The study has benefitted from many kinds of cooperation:

• In-Service historical, historic architectural and engineering, archeological, and anthropological talents and perspectives were brought to focus by project director Kunz, with planning and programming preparations and assistance from Regional Chief of Cultural Resources Leslie Hart and her staff. The combined logistics of the historical and archeological sections allowed us to cover lots of ground.

• Particularly notable was the contribution of the Service's Historic American Buildings Survey and Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER). Their documentation of historic structures and mining technology, both in-park and nearby, is a highlight of the study and a splendid example of a park benefitting from a program often categorized as external to park operations.

• Beyond the Service itself, the project design assured close cooperation between the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management, both agencies of the Department of the Interior. We jointly conceived a regional study that would benefit both agencies by applying the assembled talents for the park inventory to recordation and evaluation of historic resources in both jurisdictions. Archeologist Susan Will of BLM had earlier prepared cultural resources studies of Coldfoot and Wiseman, and these were eagerly appropriated by the author. Her final inventory of Wiseman historic structures is reproduced herein.

• Park Superintendent Dick Ring and his always cooperative staff supported the inventory project throughout with bases of operations and logistical help. In turn, the incremental products of the inventory from all disciplines were immediately incorporated into the planning process. Thus—under the congressionally mandated planning deadlines—research, field-proofing, and planning melded together as a team effort. In this context, anthropological and historic-use-pattern insights from the inventory work may have contributed most to the planning effort.

For the author it has been a tremendous privilege to work with the history, the land, and the people of the Gates of the Arctic.

William E. Brown
Project Historian
Gates of the Arctic NP&P
Historic Resources Study