The Dalton Highway

The Dalton Highway would be the main route that we would look to take for the majority of the trip. Its is a 360 mile haul road from Prudhoe Bay to the Yukon River. The road was built in 1974 using 32 million cubic yards of gravel, the pipeline parallels this primitive dusty track for a large part of its journey towards the port of Valdez.

Due to the nature of this route it seems difficult to find companies willing to rent vehicles. With the road mainly dominated with large speeding trucks and tankers kicking up clouds of dust and debris, this seems a fair point. In time Im sure we will come across a rental company that will allow such a trip.

From looking over the route and reading about it, it is advised to load a vehicle up with many supplies, extra fuel, food, CB radio and tires. Also the factor of keeping a clean campsite with food at least a quarter of a mile away from camp with the high factor of a grizzly bear crossing our path. 

The New Tough

Last week we were lucky enough to have our work published in The New Tough Magazine based in Los Angeles. The Last Free Place story was featured in their Freedom issue. Also James will being writing more short stories for them in the near future.

The New Tough, issue 3 Spring/Summer 2010

The British Journal Of Photography

The Last Free Place has recently been featured in the British Journal of Photography's project assistance awards. The work has been shortlisted for the opportunity to win £5000 to fund a body of work of choice. This would be a perfect way to fund the money needed for the Alaska trip.

British Journal Of Photography, Project Assistance Awards 2010

The Last Free Place

October 1942, in the 631 acres of desert land surrounding Niland, a tiny township in the Colorado Desert, Camp Dunlap is erected. The newest West Coast Marine Core training center. Sitting at the western foot of the Chocolate Mountains the training center would boast thirty buildings, including a water treatment and distribution system, eight miles of paved streets, a 76 x 165 swimming pool and concrete fuel tanks. March 1946, just four fickle years later and Tent City, as it was briefly known is abolished then demolished, only the Slab flooring is left intact. And the swimming pool.
Slab City, the last free place, indisputably has it’s own texture, a dusty antique boutique filled to the rafters with kindness and experience, wisdom and generosity. A panoramic horizon of Chocolate Mountains and orchestral bombings, silent ambitions and grand motivations.
Residents in the Slabs know something. They are surprised you do not. They have their eyes wide open, they have dueled with society and constraint and have neither slain nor been slain, simply preferring instead to lay their rapier down and concentrate on a more worthier opponent.

James Ranson

With a book already under their belt, they are out to explore Alaska and its iron spine that weaves through its icy core, seeking the land and the people.

The Last Free Place, By Leon Diaper and James Ranson

800 Miles to Valdez, The Building Of the Alaska Pipeline

The book by James P.Roscow will be a great insight to the beginning of the pipeline. The book starts in 1968 with an overview of the massive task ahead, with a conclusion on "the Alaska Pipeline....tomorrow's frontier. Roscow spent months in Alaska dogging oil company managers, engineers, pipeline workers, and the Alaskan natives to faithfully portray the drama, adventure, difficulties and the people.

The route of the Trans Alaska Pipeline

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), includes the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. It is commonly called the Alaska Pipeline, Trans-Alaska Pipeline, Alyeska Pipeline or The Pipeline (in Alaska), but those terms technically apply only to the 800.302 miles (1,287.961 km) of 48-inch (122 cm) pipe that convey oil from Prudhoe Bay, to Valdez, Alaska, privately owned by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company.
The pipeline was built between 1974 and 1977 after the 1973 Oil Crisis caused a sharp rise in oil prices in the United States. This rise made exploration of the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field economically feasible. Environmental, legal, and political debates followed the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay in 1968, and the pipeline was built only after the oil crisis provoked the passage of legislation designed to remove legal challenges to the project.
The task of building the pipeline had to address a wide range of difficulties, stemming mainly from the extreme cold and the difficult, isolated terrain. This was one of the first large-scale projects to deal with problems caused by permafrost, and special construction techniques had to be developed to cope with the frozen ground. The project attracted tens of thousands of workers to Alaska, causing a boomtown atmosphere in Valdez, Fairbanks, and Anchorage.
The first barrel of oil traveled through the pipeline in 1977, and full-scale production began by the end of the year. Several notable oil-leakage incidents have occurred since, including sabotage, maintenance failures, and holes caused by gunshot. The most significant oil spill associated with the pipeline was caused by the Exxon Valdez, and did not directly involve the pipeline. As of 2009, the pipeline has shipped almost 16 billion barrels (2.5×109 m3) of oil.

Wikipedia.