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Fairhaven Ditch
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Main page The Fairhaven Ditch is a historic canal on the Seward Peninsula of
Fairhaven Ditch
Contents northwestern Alaska. Located in the Bering Land Bridge National
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Current events Preserve, it is a 38-mile (61 km) ditch dug in 1906-07 without the U.S. Historic district
Random article benefit of heavy equipment in extremely hostile terrain. The ditch Alaska Heritage Resources Survey
About Wikipedia was dug by miners engaged in placer mining on the peninsula, and
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was used to transport water from Imuruk Lake, the largest body of
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fresh water on the peninsula, to mining areas north of the lake. It is
Contribute one of a large number of such canals dug on the peninsula, and
Help was one of the longest. At the bottom it was 11 feet (3.4 m) wide,
Learn to edit and was hacked out of permafrost, a volcanic field surrounding the
Community portal lake, and dirt. Cabins built to house workers and monitor water flow
Recent changes
survive.[3] The ditch was listed on the National Register of Historic
Upload file Aerial view of part of the ditch (Park Service
Places in 1987.[1]
photo)
Tools The Fairhaven ditch is located within two drainage basins, the upper Location Address restricted[2]
What links here section in that of Kugruk River and the lower section in that of Nearest city Deering, Alaska
Related changes Inmachuk River. The ditch takes its water from Imuruk Lake, which Area 4,969 acres (2,011 ha)
Special pages
lies at an elevation of about 960 feet above sea level. A dam 500 Built 1907
Permanent link
Page information feet long and 5 feet high was built to form a storage reservoir, and Built by Fairhaven Water
Cite this page this held the total inflow at the lake for two years if necessary. The Company
Wikidata item ditch is in three sections. The upper section, 17 miles long, lies on Architect C.L. Morris
top of the lava and extends from the lake around the head of Wade NRHP reference No. 87001579 [1]
Print/export AHRS No. BEN-069
Creek to the divide between Wade Creek and Pinnell River, where
Download as PDF Added to NRHP September 23, 1987
the water is dropped into a channel emptying into a sink hole in the
Languages lava, apparently connected by an underground passage with Wade
Cebuano Creek. The water is diverted from Wade Creek into Pinnell River by the middle section of the ditch, which is
Edit links about half a mile long. The distance between the upper and lower ditches is about 6.5 miles, and the drop is
estimated at 140 feet. The lower section of the ditch extends from the intake on Pinnell River along the right
side of the valley to a point a few hundred feet below Logan Gulch, a small tributary of the Inmachuk above
Arizona Creek, and has a length of about 19 miles, making the total length of the ditch 36.5 miles.
The ditch has a grade of 4.2 feet to the mile and was built 11 feet wide on the bottom. The grade line was
located 1 foot below the surface of the ground on the lower side and a 4-foot lower bank was provided. The
removal of 1 or 2 feet of the upper moss and soil put the bottom of the ditch into a mixture of ground ice and
muck, much of which was almost clear ice. This material thawed when the water was turned in, and as a result a
large part of the bottom of the ditch has settled at least 2 feet and the ditch has widened in many places to 15
or 20 feet or more. As the upper bank thawed, material was thrown against the lower bank to protect it and to
keep the water from getting under it. Practically all the upper ditch and at least three-fourths of the lower ditch is
built in frozen ground of this character. These sections have been difficult and expensive to maintain and
caused considerable interruption in the delivery of water during 1909 and 1910. Where the lower ditch is built
around the steep gulches that carry the eastern tributaries of the Pinnell the northerly slopes of the gulches are
covered with muck, but the southerly slopes are made up of a more solid clay and of decomposed mica schist.
Along the upper ditch lava bowlders are present in the muck from the surface to bedrock, and at a few places
the material encountered was composed of angular fragments of lava with only a little soil between them. Above
and below Snow Gulch, the lowest tributary of Pinnell River which the ditch crosses, are short pieces of
rockwork. The rock is much shattered and could have been loosened with picks if it had not been frozen. Much
difficulty was experienced in making the rockwork water tight on account of the lack of good sod, as the surface
covering is commonly decayed moss or peat containing much fibrous matter and little earthly material, and will
float even though saturated with water, so that it is necessary to weight it down with rocks when it is used on the
bottom of the ditch.
The ditch was built under contract, and construction was begun early in 1906. The upper section and more than
half of the lower section had been built bv October 12, when work had to be suspended for the year. The
construction was completed in July, 1907, and water was run through the ditch for a short time in September of
the same year. The pressure pipe leading from the penstock below Logan Gulch to the mine has a total length
of 10,600 feet and gives a head of 530 feet on bedrock at the Utica group of claims. This head was greater
than was found practicable for use, and a second penstock was built to reduce it to 330 feet.[4]

See also [edit]

National Register of Historic Places listings in Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska

References [edit]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: US GPO's "Congressional serial
set" (1913)
1. ^ a b "National Register Information System" . National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9,
2010.
2. ^ Federal and state laws and practices restrict general public access to information regarding the specific location
of this resource. In some cases, this is to protect archeological sites from vandalism, while in other cases it is
restricted at the request of the owner. See: Knoerl, John; Miller, Diane; Shrimpton, Rebecca H. (1990), Guidelines
for Restricting Information about Historic and Prehistoric Resources , National Register Bulletin, National Park
Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, OCLC 20706997 .
3. ^ "Fairhaven Ditch" . National Park Service. Retrieved 2015-02-26.
4. ^ US GPO (1913). Congressional serial set (Public domain ed.). United States. Government Printing Office.
pp. 235–.

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Categories: 1907 establishments in Alaska Buildings and structures in Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska
Canals in Alaska Gold mining in Alaska Canals on the National Register of Historic Places in Alaska
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Alaska
National Register of Historic Places in Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska Canals opened in 1907

This page was last edited on 6 August 2018, at 18:17 (UTC).

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