This show’s original schedule for exhibition in April 2020 in the Copper River Gallery of the Cordova Historical Museum was delayed by the COVID-19 virus until October 2020. This webshow was created in June 2020 and has been updated to include several newer paintings that are included in a current display of this show at the Valdez Museum. If you’re interested in purchasing those listed for sale, please contact the Valdez Museum. The paintings and eight interpretive panels are displayed on two web pages. Clicking on each image will expand or contract it for easier viewing. Hovering over the paintings displays their titles and sizes.

History

A remarkable set of circumstances led to the development of the Kennecott mines in the remote reaches of Alaska. For years, the indigenous Ahtna people had used “native” copper – practically pure nuggets – found near the upper reaches of the Chitina and Nizina rivers. Ahtna Chief Nikolai revealed the source of the copper to Lieutenant Allen who, in 1885, was leading a small troop of men on an historic expedition into the interior of Alaska. In 1900 a group of 11 prospectors began filing multiple claims on the mountainous land that would become the Kennecott mines. Lacking the resources to develop the mines, the prospectors sold their claims for $25,000 each (a lot of money in those days!) to Stephen Birch, a mining engineer from New York backed by the wealthy Havemeyer family.

In 1906 the Guggenheim and J.P. Morgan families created the Alaska Syndicate, a joint venture to exploit the mines at Kennecott and their other Alaska holdings. It was vertically integrated from the Kennecott mines, to their Copper River and Northwestern Railway, to their Alaska Pacific Steamship line, and finally to their ore smelters in Tacoma. They made profits at every step. Many Alaskans eyed the activities of the domineering Syndicate with suspicion.

With the ownership of the mines settled, the company turned to building a railway to get the copper to market. The right-of-way traversed some of the most rugged glaciated terrain on earth. Michael J. Heney, a railroad contractor, and Erastus C. Hawkins, a railroad engineer, had previously teamed up to build the White Pass and Yukon Railroad. The Syndicate eventually hired them to plan and build the 195-mile railroad from the port of Cordova on Prince William Sound to the mines at Kennecott. On April 8, 1911 the first trainload of copper ore arrived in the port of Cordova from Kennecott.

 In 1915 the assets of the syndicate were folded into the publicly traded Kennecott Copper Corporation with Birch as president. By the time the mines closed in 1938, the Kennecott Copper Corporation had mined 4.6 million tons of ore yielding 591,535 tons of copper and 9 million ounces of silver for a profit of $100 million.

In 1980, the National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) created Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. It takes perennial efforts on the part of the National Park Service to preserve the mine buildings at Kennecott thereby protecting a unique view of early 20th century mining architecture and technology. 

Water

Water played a central role in shaping the landscape and life of the Kennecott mines. Rivers in the park eroded their ancestral beds on their way to the Copper River and south to the Gulf of Alaska. The Copper was an important trade route for generations of Native Americans. Its valley was key to building a railroad to the mines at Kennecott. Famed Copper River salmon have fed subsistence users for centuries and now support world-famous commercial and subsistence fisheries. Ancient hydrothermal water rich in minerals deposited the copper and other metals mined at Kennecott. Concentrating the copper depended on water to move the crushed ore across mechanical shaker tables and on to state-of-the-art leaching and floatation processes. The concentrated ore was then bagged for shipment. In winter water was scarce so the mill and power plant relied on re-cycling as much as possible. Ultimately, 97% of the copper was recovered from the ore and then was shipped to the port of Cordova via the 195-mile Copper River and Northwest Railway running along the Chitina and Copper River valleys. In summer, about 20% of the mine’s electric power came from a gravity fed, water powered Pelton wheel generator.

Geology

High above the mill site of Kennecott, two layers of rock lie against each other: the sedimentary Chitistone limestone above and the igneous Nicolai greenstone below. Through the action of plate tectonics, around 110 million years ago the Wrangellia terrain - comprising much of Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park and Preserve - began slowly crushing into the southcentral coast of early Alaska. Gradually the contact zone between the limestone and adjacent greenstone assumed just the right relationship and geometry, allowing mineral rich hydrothermal waters to deposit copper and other minerals within the limestone. Water and glaciers gradually eroded the landscape revealing the copper ore high on the peaks above the mining camp of Kennecott and the town of McCarthy. Accounts and directions from the indigenous Ahtna people led prospectors to the origin of the “native” - practically pure - copper widely used and traded by the Native Americans of the Copper River and beyond. Discovered shortly after, the ore at the Kennecott site was so rich in high-grade copper that the company began by first profitably mining the talus slopes below the hard rock mines in time to fill the first train returning to Cordova, Alaska on April 8, 1911.

Ice

 Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park and Preserve is a visual treasure of landscapes sculpted by glaciers present and past. Evidence of climate change can be seen at Iceberg Lake 45 air miles south of Kennecott. A friend, Steve Moffitt, and I flew into the lake for five days of camping, hiking, photographing and sketching. I had visited the area two years earlier and was captivated by its rugged beauty and expansive views. The outlet of this glacier-dammed lake is partially blocked by a tributary of the Tana Glacier. Unlike other glacier-dammed lakes in the Park which empty periodically, Iceberg Lake had not done so in living memory. Then, in 1999, walking artist Hamish Fulton, after crossing the Bagely Icefield looked forward to seeing the lake – but it was empty! Subsequent work by Michael Loso, and others suggests that Iceberg Lake had remained relatively stable and full for at least 1,500 years. Their work in the now dry lake bed revealed evidence that temperatures in recent years accelerated thinning of the glacier dam allowing Iceberg Lake to empty. Except for a modest lake against the glacier at the outlet, that is how the valley was on our visit.