1961 Map of Skagway A-8

About this map

Grand Plateau Glacier and the adjacent Alsek Glacier dominate this 1961 field-annotated landscape in the Saint Elias Mountains region. This survey, compiled from aerial photography taken in the late 1940s and early 1950s, documents a wilderness of ice and rock before significant modern glacial recession. The map shows the massive Grand Plateau as a prominent topographical landmark, with the sheet's surface marked by numerous Crevasses that indicate the active movement of these ice fields. Because the area remained largely unsurveyed on the ground, the Bureau of Land Management predetermined land lines that appear as markers across the frozen terrain, providing a rare look at how administrative boundaries were projected over a roadless and uninhabited glacial environment.