Timber harvest in interior Alaska.

Abstract

The most active period of timber harvesting in the history of Alaska's interior occurred nearly a century ago (Roessler 1997). The beginning of this era was the year 1869, when steam-powered, stern-wheeled riverboats first operated on the Yukon River (Robe 1943). Gold was discovered in Alaska in the 40-Mile River area in 1886, a find that was overshadowed 10 years later by the discovery of gold in the Klondike, Yukon Territory. By 1898, Dawson City, Yukon Territory, was reported to have 12 sawmills producing a total of 12 million board feet of lumber annually (Naske and Slotnick 1987).

Citation

Wurtz, Tricia L.; Ott, Robert A.; Maisch, John C. 2006. Timber harvest in interior Alaska. In: Alaska''s Changing Boreal Forest: 302-308