Explorations in Alaska, 1899: route from Lynn Canal via headwaters of White and Tanana Rivers to Eagle City (U.S. Geological Survey, 21st…
The Geological Survey’s map of its 1899 route from Pyramid Harbor on Lynn Canal by the Dalton Trail — the old Chilkat trading trail into the interior — past Kluane Lake and over to the headwaters of the White and Tanana rivers, with the Chilkoot and White Pass trails, Native villages and the camps day by day.
Source
| Map | Explorations in Alaska, 1899 : route from Lynn Canal via headwaters of White and Tanana Rivers to Eagle City. |
|---|---|
| Author | U.S. Geological Survey (W. J. Peters), 1900 |
| Archive | Alaska’s Digital Archives |
| Rights | Public domain. Published 1900 — before 1931, so public domain in the United States. Evidence |
| Accuracy | About 31 km (RMS 3.5 km at 11 control points). Placed by hand in a map-queue session and approved by a person. If something sits in the wrong place, members can fix it with Fix placement on the map. |
| Method | Placed by hand: a smoothing thin-plate spline through 11 places read from the scan and matched to their positions today. See the methodology. |
| Version | 1.0.1, updated 2026-10-06 |
| Covers | Alaska |
Downloads
- Google Earth overlay (KMZ) — free (1.1 MB)
- GeoTIFF, tinted trails, EPSG:4326 (8000 × 3693; QGIS, ArcGIS) — free (3.9 MB)
- Print sheet over today’s map (3600 × 2200 PNG) — free (0.9 MB)
Project Homeland
This map is open for tracing into Project Homeland, one map of the trail network melded from every traced source. Members trace a trail by clicking along it: Trace a trail on the map.
Changelog
- 1.0.1 (2026-10-06): Fix: place names re-placed where the map draws them (they had been set by an approximation of the warp: median 5.4 km, up to 6 km off).
- 1.0.0 (2026-10-01): First release: placed by hand at 11 places. From the Native Routes sources register; Alaska’s Digital Archives (University of Alaska Fairbanks).
Credits
- From the Native Routes sources register; Alaska’s Digital Archives (University of Alaska Fairbanks)
- Georeferencing: Native Routes
- Scan: Alaska’s Digital Archives
Control points
The full list of control points with residuals is in control-points.geojson. Historic names indexed for search: names.geojson.
Something on this map sits in the wrong place? Members can show where with Fix placement on the map — confirmed fixes are tested against the map’s other control points each night and credited here. For anything else, report a problem.
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