Alaskan History
The photographers and their cameras (left), and Taku Glacier (right), 1926 [both photos by U.S. Navy]
U.S. Navy Aerial Surveys 1926-1929 Mineral Resources of Alaska was an annual compilation of the distribution, character, origin, and extent of the territory’s ore deposits, recording the kinds and quantity of minerals produced; mining developments and production of significance to the prospector, miner, or businessman; and in general as thorough a report on the Last Frontier’s mineral resources as could be produced at the time. In the twenty-fourth such report, produced by The Geographic Survey for 1927, on page 74, under the heading ‘Projects In Progress During Season of 1927, the following was reported: “One of the most important pieces of work that was started in the winter of 1926-27 and will be continued for several years is the compilation and working up into maps of the aerial pictures taken by the Navy Department, at the request of the Geological Survey, of a large part of southeastern Alaska. This work has been largely under the technical direction of R. H. Sargent, with the cooperation of F. H. Moffit in special phases of the work.” Due to funding problems the aerial surveys were suspended in 1928, but the 1929 Mineral Resources of Alaska report included this update: “Topographic supervision of aerial photographic work in southeastern Alaska was a continuation of a project started in 1926, when the Navy Department, at the request of the Geological Survey, photographed from the air about 10,000 square miles of southeastern Alaska, so that the resulting pictures might be used for preparing maps of the region. This work was so successful and of such inestimable
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