There are at least 100 abandoned settlements in Alaska. That's the number Beth Mikow figured as she wrote her master's thesis for UAF in 2010. Mikow, who now works for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as a subsistence specialist, counted deserted Alaska places as part of her look at how the state changed since it became part of America.
The captain and crew abandoned the ship, which carried furs from Canadian trappers and a variety of other cargo. Following the ice's capture of the Baychimo, the captain and 14 men built a wooden hut on the sea ice to keep track of the ship. One month later, they weathered a great windstorm in that shelter.
Over the years, the abandoned bus hosted hunters, trappers and wanderers who happened upon the rain-and-bear resistant shelter just north of Denali National Park and Preserve.
The book features a quarter century of kids aged 13 and older from the small Cu’pik-speaking village of Chevak. The children each spent a few days at the abandoned village site of Old Chevak helping Ely and other biologists round up flightless birds so the researchers could band them.
As the water rises, it will drown more than 1,400 rural towns and villages abandoned earlier by government decree. The water rising behind the dam will power 26 huge turbines to provide electricity, and will allow people to control a river that has killed 300,000 people by flooding during the 20th century.
The flood of 1853 is substantiated by Indian legends of a village that was abandoned on the north shore of Lituya Bay because eight canoes filled with men were lost in the wave. Miller speculates that the wave also could have been triggered by a land slide, possibly under water, since there were no reports of an earthquake. The message is clear.