Talk:Alatna River

Factual accuracy

The tag relates to a dispute over the length of the river quoted in the article. I believe we should simply take out the lengths as quoted. In my own search, I found that the National Parks Service described the river as 83.6 miles long [1] but the Columbia Gazetteer descibes the river as 200 miles long [2], Riverfacts.com lists the river as 260 miles long [3], the Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th edition, agrees with the NPS figure [4]. I found a book that talks about the "first hundred miles" of the Alanta river. So ultimately, there's something fishy going on here and I don't think we should be reporting a length unless someone can find a source that explains what's going on. Length of rivers has got to be a difficult thing to measure: some of these may be "air distance" lengths that ignore the meandering of the river. Also, I saw a reference to the "lower Alatna river"; perhaps some of these measure one part of a river without being specific about which part. I note further that the lengths described in the article here are between specific locations on the river; those descriptions are not backed up by any of the sources i found. Mangojuice^talk 20:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and List of rivers of Alaska lists the river as 145 miles long. Mangojuice^talk 20:27, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I have contacted NPS and they are going to change the website eventually. The rangers I talked with believe the 83 miles to be only the part of the Alatna contained in the Gates of Arctic NP. Many other websites have the statement "75 to 85 miles from Takahula Lake and Circle Lake to Allakaket", which is what Wiki used to say. I'm not sure the origin of this information, but it is probably grossly incorrect. The Gates of the Arctic Map you buy in Bettles shows it to be obviously well over 100 miles from Takahula to Allakaket. Using the map the straight line distance is about 60 miles from Takahula to Allakaket. There are trip reports stating the length of the river according to handheld GPS from 150 to 200 miles long. I paddled from Takahula to Allakaket myself and it was about 138 miles on our GPS. Hopefully the NPS website will have something eventually. Hamsamich (talk) 17:11, 20 September 2008 (UTC)hamsamich

For future reference, the figures were added by an anonymous contributor in 2006 [5]; that contributor made no further contributions. Anyway, I don't think it's particularly important to have correct figures on a popular river trip. Much more important would be to have more substantive information about the river itself; it's overall length and flow volume would be more relevant... Mangojuice^talk 05:20, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

The most useful distance would probably be the distance from Circle to Alakaket. Most people don't go to the headwaters. If they do they are more likely interested in hiking, not so much canoeing due to the shallow nature of the river there. Plus this is the most beautiful/interesting area to hike in for most using the river. Although if you knew the entire river length you could easily measure the less-meandering section from Gaedeke to Circle and subtract this. I guess I'm questioning your use of the term relevant. When I talked to the Rangers they said the distance on their website now is fairly meaningless because it is the distance of the part of the river only in the park. Circle to Ak isn't just a popular portion of the river, this is where most people go. So it would probably be very useful, but maybe not relevant in the way you mean it. I guess the administrators know the function of this website better than me; I would think the largest group of people that would use any specific data available would be the target. Maybe not. 68.57.124.65 (talk) 01:55, 22 September 2008 (UTC)hamsamich

What I mean by relevant is, this is not a travel guide. What we need is basic information about the river more than anything else. We should try to get a map, info on the history of the river, and such. Right now there's only one sentence of facts, the rest is like a travel guide. Mangojuice^talk 12:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I think I get your drift, but that is the main purpose of the river today for most people (travel for tourists) except for the locals, and most of them don't have the internet. Making it sound encyclopedic makes sense I guess, since this is an online encyclopedia, but probably not as useful. For instance, the Mississippi river is useful in many ways to people and has a whole lot of recent storied history behind it, giving plenty of information other than tourism, so you have plenty of different material to write about there. The Alatna is very remote with hardly any people living nearby, making the focus on the Alatna much different than a river like the Mississippi. Most people going there today are tourists and hunters/fishing (local and not, so kinda more tourist-hunters there). So tourism is a very important aspect of the Alatna today, like it or not. This would tend to make an entry on the importance of the Alatna heavy on the tourism part of it I would think. I tried to buy a book about the gates of the Arctic National Park, but not much exists when compared to Denali, which has alot of great stuff. I'll keep looking. I already know alot about it based on the excellent map I have, but I promised not to use it, so I won't!! 68.57.124.65 (talk) 03:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)hamsamich

OK, got a book and it fills in alot of gaps. Getting the info from the book, looking at the map, and the email from the NPS website seems to agree on the river length. I also have emails from Brooks Range Aviation which say the same things. I'd say the book I got and the map are the two most important sources that show how long the Alatna is, with my gps, Brooks Range Aviation, and the email and phone conversations VERIFYING that the NPS website information is for the portion of the Alatna in the park only. I think many websites took the NPS river length as an ENTIRE river length, not realizing NPS was just stating the length of the PORTION of the river in the park. They then put this incorrect information out and it was repeated. Once again, just to be understood, the book The River Guide, the Gates of the Arctic National Park Map agree, and the email from NPS stating the meaning of the 83 miles on their website is not the entire length of the Alatna River. I know emails don't count, but this email (and phone coversation) just CLARIFIED what the NPS website is trying to say. So anyway, this is the best I can do, if this isn't enough proof, I'll just leave this article alone from now on. Hamsamich (talk) 20:56, 28 September 2008 (UTC)hamsamich