Eureka, Kentucky Creek, and my Alaska land:Finally after years of procrastination, some maps: 3k, 10k, & 130k; more on the way. The biggest block is probably that, unlike my Michigan land, there's no easy and consistent NAIP imagery to fluff things out with - the AK stuff comes with varying degrees of orthorectification error, incomplete coverage, long shadows, etc. In other words, it takes a little more work. However, there's nothing as mind-numbingly relaxing on a weekend as drinking beer and churning out these maps... Hardly good for the body, but fun to look at when compiled! This is a website for my land in the annoyingly-named "Kentucky Creek" subdivision and the surrounding country near Eureka, interior Alaska. Subdivision as in the State of AK scoped out, surveyed, and sold off a section of land for people to build houses, cabins, stills, saunas, etc. or just to enjoy (which is my flavor), as opposed to subdivision of ugly city houses crammed together in a matrix of crime and thou shalt nots. I bought 20 acres here in 2006 from the State of Alaska. One of the things that attracted me was that except for 3 lots immediately adjacent to the road, nobody had bid (because they were originally auctioned) or bought (after the auction, unsold lots are sold at the minimum bid price) anything. Yep, anywhere where nobody wants to be is where I want to be. Nobody touched it for several years after (I'd occasionally check to see what was still for sale), then all of a sudden late 2008 it all sold off. I think there is some real estate speculation going on, or perhaps just big dreams from below, but I sure wish there were some AK residency requirement for these sales.I don't get there too often (my last trip was a week ago as I type this, but previous to that was a year and a half!) But like the UP land. I can dream via maps (which are also fun for me to make), aerial imagery, and my photos. This is all primarily for my amusement, but may be of interest to others (but the pages have a 'no robots' rule, so probably won't be found via a web search). Some great things about this spot: everybody I've met around Eureka and Manley is friendly. Manley Hot Springs, just ~15 miles down the road, is a nice little town (pop. ~65) with a store/post/gas station, a nice roadhouse, a cool boat launch on the Tanana River with old fish wheels around, etc. The lingonberries here are the best I've ever seen - and by here, I mean right on my 20 acres - like bunches of low grapes! Eureka Dome, I hesitate to say, is my absolute favorite spot in Alaska and I have the ultimate camp spot there. The photography there is perfect. The road from my place in Fox to the land is about 140 miles of unclogged scenic beauty. I sometimes see gigantic moose at a few undisclosed locations along the way. Baker Creek, about a mile west of my land, is a very pretty and somewhat uncharacteristically-Alaskan wide, flat-bottomed stream that reminds me of the UP. Sometimes I see or hear a beaver there when I camp near it. The nearby Overland Bluff is fantastic. The birches in this country, especially where exposed to wind, grow curvy and beautiful. There are occasionally lynx on my land (also squirrels, ptarmigan, moose, etc.) The blueberries and crowberries are great around here too. There are some nice peatlands in the area to botanize and photograph. Mr. Whiskers the famous camping cat has camped and hiked around the land and surrounding territory. The lot to the west is retained by the State of Alaska. My lot is only ~150m off the road, and whoever wants to access the interior lots pretty much has to go past my spot on the W or N. In a way that's busier than I'd like, but in reality it's not too many people and they're friendly - and also means that anybody a-wantsta make their access nicer also does the same for me! In fact this has already happened, and I now have pretty much a gravel driveway on the N side and a traveled-down dirt drive on the W. On the name: I need to think of a better one, as Kentucky just sounds like the opposite of this, and Eureka really is the old ghost town site a couple miles to the NE. So here I present my little subarctic, high boreal nature reserve. 1. Area maps (links right down there): I've just started these at long last. I wanted to add at least a few from the different scales from the immediate land area to the greater Eureka-Manley area: 3k, 10k, 50k, and 130k scales ("scale" according to the GIS production software; of course the actual scale depends on your computer screen. Most are simple imagery maps without additional lettering, since those the most interesting for me now to see the changes over time (also easiest!), but at some point I will add actual 'made' maps from assorted geodata with proper lettering, etc. and, maybe, some scanned hand-drawn maps (which are always prettier). As always, there is a graphic scale [scale bar] on each map). They're the same pixel size (the scale bar changes appropriately): 1200x776 for the screen view, and you get the 10200x6600 if you press the screen view picture ... Lots of detail in those big versions! This area has less 'easy' imagery than the l48. There are some aerial photos back to the 1950s that I have to georeference to make them "line-up" in place, so that'll take a while. There is also some satellite imagery of course, but in general I have a less consistent imagery set with more temporal gaps. I've split the maps by scale, which means each set will stay at the same view, with the maps showing the changes year-to-year. The '3k' are the largest scale, 'zoomed in' on the land; '130k' shows the whole area for a dozen or so miles around (the same area as, say, the Whitefish Point-Two-Hearted Country or Keweenaw County mainland of the UP! They are in order from oldest to newest best I can - sometimes, as with topo maps, you can't as easily 'place' them. Use the controls above the maps to view manually or automatically in sequence. There are notes of variable or dubious usefulness below the map. The screen maps are ~300-600k so might be slow to
load, depending. If the maps are too big and you can't
see both the controls and views on the screen, hit F11
for fullscreen. OK, finally the links to the maps - they open
in new tabs: 2. Miscellaneous photos. 3. Some miscellaneous related external documents
and writings: 4. See also: |