Abandoned Alaska: Copper, Gold, and Rust

Author(s): Paul Scannell

$23.99

Reviews:

Pre-order Information Shipping

Series: Abandoned Union
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 9781634992176
Related Topics: Abandoned Union, Alaska, West, Latest

DESCRIPTION

Completed in 1911, the Copper River Northwestern Railway allowed Alaska's mining industry to ﬂourish. Copper and gold prospecting townships and camps spread rapidly in the following thirty years.

Far-ﬂung glacier-side bunkhouses and angling stations dotted the wild landscape, with workers coming from all around the world to seek their fortune. The sudden closing of the Kennecott copper mine in 1938 left many of these industrial and residential structures abandoned. Leaving with only what they could carry, the miners left plates on tables and sheets on beds.

Preserved by their remoteness and Alaska’s harsh freezing temperatures, the sites retain many of these precious artifacts. Most still lie where they were left, almost a century ago.

Photographer Paul Scannell has spent years hiking to the region’s precariously perched mountain-top copper mines and remote gold mining sites with the aim of capturing America’s slowly disappearing frontier history.

His fascination with dereliction and its haunting beauty grows with each new adventure. Observing nature reclaim its territory, for him, holds irresistible drama. This book maps a personal journey, driven by loss and defined by discovery and healing. It is a collection of his photographs, travel notes and observations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Paul Scannell, Dublin-born photographer, left his life in London in the summer of 2016 to explore Alaska's wilderness. Most inspired by moody northern landscapes and derelict residential and industrial sites, his travels led him to the Wrangell St Elias National Park, America's largest. He achieved placement on a season-long artist's residency and explored a landscape rich in untouched human history. His work seeks to observe the indelible mark of human habitation. He has exhibited in both London and Dublin and, after a successful residency in Northwest Iceland, has recently returned to Alaska to further explore some of America’s most proliﬁc frontier history.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781634992176
Publisher: America Through Time
Date: 04/15/2020
State: Alaska
Images: 141 Color
Pages: 96
Dimensions: 6.5 (w) x 9.25 (h)

REVIEWS

Evocative, immersive and haunting – hits the senses like icy air

I really loved this book, which rifled sharply through my senses like icy air. Scannell takes us on a journey through abandoned Alaska and, just as the men once mined the copper and gold, he is mining his own soul for meaning in a time of personal loss.He visits places where a Pompeii-esque kenopsia prevails, and so the book is a touching juxtaposition of the photographer-writer working in soundless solitude in buildings that once teemed with workers –mining, living, eating and sleeping cheek by jowl.Scannell beckons us into a buckled bunkhouse, where, like a fairground fun house, he can't tell which way is up; he leads us along precarious staircases where nails ooze rust into the bloated wood; he shows us a tram-tower that’s cabled to the surrounding rocks – it seems to symbolise the precariousness of human existence, a reminder that time and nature will eventually eradicate us all, but for now we must cling on as best we can.The elements are beautifully evoked in both words and images: there’s trickling water, crystalline ice, musty air, sheers cliffs, unending skies and glacial moraines – but it’s not only about inanimate matter and vastness, because Scannell also depicts the minutiae of human existence: socks drying over a barrel stove, a dozen work-gloves hanging from nails, remnants of ripped dungarees, a corroded sardine can, even the fragment of a poster depicting the eyes of a 1930s starlet.These buildings are haunting and eerie, but Scannell, who was dealing with immense personal loss, finds succour in the isolation and dilapidation. As his lens and words capture these spaces, they in turn capture him; he finds a paradoxical rebirth in the rust, warmth in the ice-sodden woodwork, calm in the corrosion, and above all, light in the shadows.Evocative, immersive and educational, a highly recommended read.