Alaska, Western Canada and United States Collection
The Alaska Western Canada and United States collection is a digital collection of historic photographs documenting the geographic area of Alaska, Western United States and the Canadian provinces of Yukon Territory and British Columbia. The collection features images of Oregon, Idaho, and areas of interest in Alaska and the Yukon Territory relating to the Gold Rush of 1898-1900. Included also are images of mining activities, street scenes, Eskimo and Native Americans of the region, hunting and fishing, transportation, and World War II installations. Because new images will added to the digital collection, the database will be updated periodically. In addition, our staff will continue to update the information attached to each image as new research alters the descriptive records.
The Alaska Railroad, constructed by the U.S. Government between 1914 and 1923, encouraged the development of the Alaska Territory. The Reconnaissance Survey for the Alaska Railroad Digital Collection documents the exploration of the Iditarod Trail area in Southwest Alaska where an Alaska Railroad branch line was considered.
About the Database
The information for the Alaska, Western Canada and United States Collection was researched and prepared by the UW Libraries Special Collections Division and Cataloging staff in 2004. Most of the photographs were taken from the Alaska Collection, and the Canada Collection PH Coll 393. A number of smaller collections relating to this subject were also included in this database. The images were scanned from b/w photographic prints in grayscale and color using a Microtek Scanmaker 9600L and saved in .jpg format. Some manipulation of the images was done to present the clearest possible digital image. The scanned images were then linked with descriptive data using the Contentdm software suite. The original collections reside in the UW Libraries Special Collections Division.
