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Photographer: Vern Brickley
Date: May 1939
Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
John Logan (left) and “Slim Williams” prepare for their trip across roadless Alaska and Canada, headed for Seattle. Their trip was to gain publicity for the International Highway, an idea that saw fruition in the Alaska Highway, constructed as a World War II effort in 1941-2.
Brickley “People-Prewar”
Photographer: Steve McCutcheon
Date: March 1964
Location: Anchorage
Turnagain Subdivision suffered major damage in the Good Friday earthquake. Fifty houses were destroyed in this neighborhood, and more than 2,500 were destroyed or damaged in Alaska. 115 Alaskans were killed, most by the seismic waves that followed the quake. There were also sixteen deaths in Oregon and California from the waves generated.
McC 28792
Photographer: Steve McCutcheon
Date: March 1964
Location: Seward
Seismic waves and landslides damaged the Seward waterfront after the Good Friday earthquake. Fires at the tank farm were also devastating. The Alaska Railroad suffered major damage between Matanuska Junction and Seward.
McC [Seward]
Photographer: Willis T. Geisman
Date: 1936
Location: Matanuska Valley
Emil Kusher and 50 pounds of turnips grown in his garden after the 1936 growing season. 200 families from Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin came to Alaska in 1935 under the auspices of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and settled on 40-acre tracts in the Matanuska Valley near Palmer. Some colonist families are still on their farms today. There are more than 1000 photos of the first years activities taken by this government photographer.
B86.4.720, Odsather Collection
Photographer: J.E. Thwaites?
Date: ca. 1908
Location: Iliamna Bay, on the Alaska Peninsula
Aleuts in their bidarkas, Iliamna Bay, Alaska. There is no over-abundance of Aleut photography, but the Museum holds several interesting views of Aleut skin-covered boats. The term bidarki or bidarka is a Russian borrowed term, and is commonly used to name the Aleut boat commonly called kayak (or qayaq) in the Eskimo languages.
B82.52.225
Photographer: Ward W. Wells
Date: Late 1940s or early 1950s
Location: Bristol Bay
These double-enders are tied at the Libby’s cannery, waiting for the salmon run. Individual canneries owned the boats and contracted with two-man crews to fish for them. Motorized boats were introduced into the bay in the early 50s. This photo is one of more than 30,000 stock photos taken by Mr. Wells between World War II and 1982, and an in-house index is available.
WWS 0156-R3
Photographer: W.J. Erskine
Date: June 6, 1912
Location: Kodiak
Taken during the end of the first of three ash falls from Katmai volcano in the town of Kodiak. Five inches of ash fell between 5 PM Thursday, and the Friday morning. By the end of the third fall on the 8th, 11 inches had fallen on flat ground in town. The ash clogged waterways, blocked the sun, and collapsed buildings from its weight.
Brickley Collection
Photographer: Unknown
Date: March 10, 1928
Location: Anchorage
Russ Merrill on the Anchorage Park Strip, then the city’s landing field between 9th and 10th avenues. Merrill flew for Anchorage Air Transport until he was lost in Cook Inlet in 1929. Merrill Field, the city’s general aviation field, was named for him the next year.
Brickley Collection
