1952 Map of Circle D-4

About this map

The White Mountains dominate the southern half of this landscape, rising above a network of drainages that define the sub-arctic terrain. In the early 1950s, when these aerial photographs were captured, the region remained an unroaded wilderness focused on the complex hydrology of the Preacher Creek system. The map records the meandering path of the North Fork Preacher Creek as it winds through the foothills, eventually joining the main stem in the southeast. Further north, the isolated flow of Discovery Creek cuts through the high plateaus, illustrating the raw, unsurveyed character of the Alaskan interior during this mid-century period of federal land management by the Bureau of Land Management.