Fairhaven Ditch

The Fairhaven Ditch is a historic canal on the Seward Peninsula of northwestern Alaska. Located in the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, it is a 38-mile (61 km) ditch dug in 1906-07 without the benefit of heavy equipment in extremely hostile terrain. The ditch was dug by miners engaged in placer mining on the peninsula, and was used to transport water from Imuruk Lake, the largest body of fresh water on the peninsula, to mining areas north of the lake. It is one of a large number of such canals dug on the peninsula, and was one of the longest. At the bottom it was 11 feet (3.4 m) wide, and was hacked out of permafrost, a volcanic field surrounding the lake, and dirt. Cabins built to house workers and monitor water flow survive. The ditch was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. The Fairhaven ditch is located within two drainage basins, the upper section in that of Kugruk River and the lower section in that of Inmachuk River. The ditch takes its water from Imuruk Lake, which lies at an elevation of about 960 feet above sea level. A dam 500 feet long and 5 feet high was built to form a storage reservoir, and this held the total inflow at the lake for two years if necessary. The ditch is in three sections. The upper section, 17 miles long, lies on top of the lava and extends from the lake around the head of Wade Creek to the divide between Wade Cree

Canal data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).