Historic Structure Report: Field Laboratory – Brooks Lake, Alaska

Wackrow, Katie

This Historic Structure Report (HSR) was completed to support the rehabilitation and reuse of a log building historically identified as the “Field Laboratory, Brooks Lake, Alaska” (AHRS #XMK-00124) and commonly identified by its contemporary building number, “BL-3”. Between 1941 and 1972, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) used this building as a laboratory, bunkhouse, and headquarters for the Bristol Bay Investigation, a fisheries management and research program established to study salmon associated with major rivers and lakes in the area. In 1940, the USFWS received permission from the National Park Service (NPS) to construct their building within the boundaries of Katmai National Monument. From 1941 to 1950, the Field Laboratory and its fisheries staff served as the only permanent federal building and represented the only regular federal presence in the national monument. The NPS acquired the building in June of 1978, and has since used it for employee housing. Park managers intend to perform treatment on the historic building and prepare it for reuse as a visitor center which will feature exhibits on local fisheries research, early settlements, and archeology. The Field Laboratory is part of a 42-acre USFWS fisheries research complex on the northeast shore of Lake Brooks, approximately 16 miles east of the west border of Katmai National Park and Preserve. The building is located 0.81 miles south of Brooks Camp and 0.28 miles northwest of the park’s main thoroughfare, the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes Road. It can be accessed by a float plane on Lake Brooks or from an unnamed dirt road that leads from Brooks Camp. The Field Laboratory is situated at the north end of the fisheries research district, set back 60' east from the lake’s shoreline and 105' southeast of where the lake feeds Brooks River. Facing west towards the lake, the building sits on a relatively flat, cleared lot surrounded by a white spruce (Picea glauca) boreal forest. It is a one-story, cross gabled, log and wood-framed building constructed in the rustic style of architecture. The information included in this report stems from extensive research of primary and secondary source material and comprehensive on-site observations of the building. NPS staff conducted primary and secondary research at the Katmai National Park and Preserve Museum Collections and the NPS Alaska Regional Office in Anchorage. It is recommended that the exterior of the Field Laboratory is restored to the period between 1959, when the building was completed, and 1976, prior to NPS modifications and that the interior of the building is rehabilitated for use as a visitor center. It is also recommended that site drainage issues are addressed, in accordance with “BL3 Site Drainage Recommendations” (2014), available in Appendix B of this report. These recommendations are based on (1) an effort to retain identified character defining features of the building; (2) the mitigation of noted active conditions and threats to the building; and (3) the general recommendations for long-term treatment of historic buildings at Katmai National Park and Preserve. Please refer to “Part I: Developmental History -- Physical Description & Character Defining Features” for more information on character-defining features and “Part II: Treatment and Use” for an elaboration on the recommended treatments of this property. It is also recommended that an updated DOE is completed to update the resource’s historic name and period of significance. Historically, the building was identified as the “Field Laboratory, Brooks Lake, Alaska,” not the “Lake Brooks Field Laboratory.” The end date for the period of significance is 1972, the year it was no longer associated with fisheries research. The 1999 DOE lists the end date of the period of significance as ending in 1957, when USFWS biologists completed the construction of the building.

Historic Structure Report: Field Laboratory – Brooks Lake, Alaska

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