| Summary: | Following discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay in 1968, a transportation and utility corridor was established to link the Arctic Coast with southern Alaska. In 1974-75, a road was constructed within this corridor to facilitate construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, now scheduled for completion in 1976. Initial developmental decisions preceded any planning for the future of land in the corridor or within the region. To provide a basis for future management, the Fairbanks District of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in 1974 commenced a comprehensive study of resources, development potentials and constraints, and management objectives. In early 1975 BLM produced a preliminary plan for the utility corridor, which in most places extends in width from 6 to 24 miles. In spring 1975, a regional planning seminar under Professor Victor Fischer at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, devoted the entire semester to an analysis of regional factors in northern Alaska that would effect the future of the corridor and use of the North Slope Road. Whereas the assumption had previously been that the new road to the Arctic would be open to the general public, this regional planning seminar carried out the first systematic examination of use alternatives, taking into account environmental, economic, and social factors. One of the questions that emerged quite early in the land-use planning investigations was whether a new community should and would evolve at the intersection of the North Slope Road and the Yukon River-Yukon Crossing. A planning team sponsored by BLM carried out an initial investigation in cooperation with the Alaska State Division of Lands, Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, and others. This, in turn, led to a decision to carry out a more thorough investigation of the regional factors that may affect establishment of a community at Yukon Crossing and of the land use and other requirements that would have to be accommodated if a community were established. BLM arranged with the Institute of Social and Economic ...
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