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er influential Alaskans to have Public Land Order No. 82 revoked, succeed - ed. U.S. Secretary of Interior Secretary Fred Seaton, under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, agreed to rescind it. This led to 20 million acres of prom- ising North Slope land for private leasing and drilling. While Dalton’s hope for producing Gubik gas and moving it by pipeline to Fairbanks and the Railbelt did not materialize, the newly available ad - ditional acreage prompted oil com- panies to lease, explore and drill new wells, which led to the discovery of Prudhoe Bay in 1967-68. Jim Dalton finished his working career as an engineering, transporta- tion and logistics expert in the Arctic. His early Arctic Contractors work in NPR-4 was invaluable. He conduct - ed numerous overland expeditions that supplied remote sites. He staked thousands of miles of winter trails
throughout the years from Canada to the Bering Sea and from the Arctic Ocean to the Brooks Range. He con - structed ice runways and bridges and supervised the drilling of exploratory oil and gas wells. His knowledge of the roadless North Slope, Arctic seasonal access and the area’s resources and daunt- ing challenges assisted State leaders in the 1960s as they selected state lands proven to be valuable petroleum resources. Today, we recognize some of those areas as the Simpson Seeps, Colville River Basin, Prudhoe Bay, Kuparuk and the Gubik Gas Field. Charlie Parr, State House Repre - sentative from Fairbanks, sponsored and introduced a bill in the Alaska State Legislature to name the high - way north to the oilfields after Jim Dalton. And in 1981, the North Slope Haul Road was officially named the Dalton Highway.
economically feasible. He decided to see what he could do to get development started. He applied for and accepted a position with the Alaska Development Board. He thought that a detailed, doc - umented report on feasibility of de- veloping Northern Alaska petroleum would carry much more weight when issued by a government agency than would be if privately published. His feasibility report was pub - lished June 30, 1954. It’s an 80-page book accepted as an official publi - cation of the Alaska Developmental Board, Territory of Alaska. Known as the “Gubik Report” his feasibili - ty study created considerable interest among oil companies, but the area involved (Gubik Field) was locked up under Public Land Order No. 82. During a period of several years, his persistent efforts along with oth -
Thousands of Miles of Experience Committed to Client Satisfaction Dedicated to Safety Excellence
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Photos Courtesy Libby Dalton
Cat tracks being loaded on bush planes July 15, 1945. That year was the first season for exploration by the U.S. Navy Seabees.
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