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 ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
. They form the headwaters for the
Delta River
The Delta River is an tributary of the Tanana River in the U.S. state of Alaska. Its name in the Ahtna language is ''Saas Na’ ''. Fed by the Tangle Lakes of the Alaska Range, the river flows north to meet the larger river near Big Delta ...
.
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. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...
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 Na ...
. 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 Fairbanks. It ...
. The lakes support many species of fish, including
lake trout
The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, it can also ...
,
burbot
The burbot (''Lota lota'') is the only gadiform (cod-like) freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are those that spend some or all of their lives in fresh water, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 1.05%. These environments di ...
, 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 Misso ...
. The area around the lakes consists mostly of
tundra
In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless moun ...
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 often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...
. The sites are concentrated closely to the lakes in a range covering about 80 square kilometers and the attraction of the location was most likely that the windswept hills surrounding the lakes would have attracted
caribou
Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...
New Delhi
New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...
: 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 United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
National Register of Historic Places listings in Copper River Census Area, Alaska __NOTOC__
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Copper River Census Area, Alaska.
This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Copper River ...
*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska.
This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Matanuska-Susitna Bor ...
*
References
Further reading
*Pellerin, L. (2003). Magnetotelluric data in the Delta River Mining District, near the Tangle Lakes area of south-central Alaska pen-file Report 03-328 Denver, CO: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey.