The Tangle Lakes (Long Tangle Lake, Lower Tangle Lake, Round Tangle Lake, and Upper Tangle Lake) are a long chain of lakes connected by streams in interior

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

. They form the headwaters for the Delta River.

Access and use

The main public access to the Lakes is from a

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

maintained campground and boat launch at Round Tangle Lake, about from Paxson on the

Denali Highway Denali Highway (Alaska Route 8) is a lightly traveled, mostly gravel highway in the U.S. state of Alaska. It leads from Paxson on the Richardson Highway to Cantwell on the Parks Highway. Opened in 1957, it was the first road access to Denali ...

. The boat launch is also the upper terminus of the Delta River Canoe Trail, a 2-3 day route to the Gulkana River and the

Richardson Highway The Richardson Highway is a highway in the U.S. state of Alaska, running 368 miles (562 km) and connecting Valdez to Fairbanks. It is marked as Alaska Route 4 from Valdez to Delta Junction and as Alaska Route 2 from there to Fairbank ...

. The lakes support many species of fish, including

lake trout The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater Salvelinus, char living mainly in lakes in Northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, laker, and grey trout. In Lake Sup ...

burbot The burbot (''Lota lota''), also known as bubbot, mariah, loche, cusk, freshwater cod, freshwater ling, freshwater cusk, the lawyer, coney-fish, lingcod, or eelpout, is a species of coldwater ray-finned fish native to the subarctic regions of ...

, and

Arctic grayling The Arctic grayling (''Thymallus arcticus'') is a species of freshwater fish in the salmon family Salmonidae. ''T. arcticus'' is widespread throughout the Arctic and Pacific drainages in Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, as well as the upper Missou ...

. The area around the lakes consists mostly of

tundra In physical geography, a tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. There are three regions and associated types of tundra: #Arctic, Arctic, Alpine tundra, Alpine, and #Antarctic ...

due to the high elevation ().

History

The Tangle Lakes area has been the subject of extensive archaeological exploration. Prior to 1976, almost 150 sites had been discovered showing that The Tangle Lakes have been populated intermittently since the settlement of the

New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

. The sites are concentrated close to the lakes in a range covering about 80 square kilometres and the attraction of the location was most likely that the windswept hills surrounding the lakes would have attracted

caribou The reindeer or caribou (''Rangifer tarandus'') is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only represe ...

seeking to graze on the exposed

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

(not for fishing as the lakes would not have been able to support a settlement).F. H. West. "Old World Affinities of Archaeological Complexes from Tangle Lakes (Central Alaska)". Beringia in the Cenozoic Era. Ed. V. L. Kontrimavichus.

New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...

: Amerind Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., 1984. 571-596. Part of the Tangle Lakes area has been listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

as an archaeological district in 1971.

References

External links

Fish Alaska MagazineLonely Planet AlaskaUnofficial Guide to Adventure Travel in AlaskaArchaeology of Prehistoric Native AlaskaBLM Tangle Lakes Archaeological District trail brochure
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Alaska Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Alaska Lakes of Alaska Lakes of Copper River Census Area, Alaska National Register of Historic Places in Copper River Census Area, Alaska National Register of Historic Places in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska Tourist attractions in Copper River Census Area, Alaska {{CopperRiverAK-geo-stub

Access and use

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links