newsminer.com

10 YEARS AGO

Aug. 17, 1998 — New hiking trails. Dozens more campsites. New steps and handrails at rest stops along the park road.

Those are among the benefits Denali National park and Preserve will get from a program that routes most of the revenue from entrance fees into the park’s coffers. Before, the money reverted to the federal treasury in Washington, D.C.

The new arrangement — a three-year trial system that began this summer — is more than just a different way to give Denali its budget allotment.

25 YEARS AGO

Aug. 17, 1983 — A giant seawater treatment plant arrived at Prudhoe Bay about 6 a.m. this morning, and on its heels were the lead barges in this year’s sealift to North Slope oilfields.

Barges were expected to begin docking this morning or afternoon. Weather finally cooperated for the fleet, which was expected to be at the Prudhoe Bay dock earlier this month.

The shoreline icepack finally pulled back to allow passage. Normally there is a four- to six-week “window” for barges to reach Prudhoe Bay, be unloaded and leave before the ice moves back and winter conditions set in.

50 YEARS AGO

Aug. 17, 1958 — Alaska leads the nation in float plane traffic, according to a recent report by the Civil Aeronautics Administration.

Sixteen percent of all the float planes in the country are in Alaska, with most of them based at the Lake Hood seaplane base at Anchorage. Only one state, New York, approaches Alaska in its number of float planes registered with the CAA. New York has 215 and Alaska has 364 of the national total of 2,296.

75 YEARS AGO

Aug. 17, 1933 — For work on road and aviation fields in the Fairbanks area, $59,000 has been released by the federal government and the expenditure, which is authorized by the Public Works Administration for the relief of unemployment, will be made immediately under direction of the Alaska Road Commission, Frank Nash, the commission’s Superintendent in this district, announced today.