The Role of Transportation in the Fairbanks Area

Abstract

The Yukon River with its numerous affluents dominates the great central plain of Alaska. The valley of the Yukon provides ready access to a territory which stretches from the Brooks Range on the north to the Alaska mountain system on the south, and penetrates southeastward across the border in a great crescent deep into the Canadian Klondike. This master river, 2,300 miles in length, is also the central transport artery of the interior. Of its many affluents, none is more centrally located than the Tanana-Chena, where Fairbanks has become the recognized trade and transportation hub. The city proper is located on the banks of the Chena River a few miles from its confluence with the Tanana, the urban area including a small por tion of the southern fringe of the Yukon Tanana Upland with its gold bearing gravels. Here, placer mining was responsible for the founding and early growth of Fairbanks. A spur of the upland extends to the bank of the Tanana some eight miles west of Fairbanks; known as Chena Ridge, this spur marks the westernmost spread of settlement along the floodplain. The right bank floodplain of the Tanana is relatively narrow because the stream has been deflected by the heavy deposition of tributary glacial streams from the Alaska Range to the south. Coriolis force, deflecting moving masses to the right in the northern hemisphere, also has contributed to this phenomenon. Settlement is concentrated on the floodplain and the south facing slope of the adjacent upland. South of the river, the plain has never been settled. A military reservation, Ladd Air Force Base Bombing and Gunnery Range, is now located on the plain and, together with the difficulties and expense associated with bridging the river, will negate civilian settlement in this direction in the foreseeable future.