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Civilian Conservation Corps

The Civilian Conservation Corps was born in the depths of the Great Depression, part of the New Deal, a way to economic recovery.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected in November 1932 and inaugurated on March 1933, recommended a series of public works programs to ease under-employment during the Great Depression.

On March 31, 1933, Congress passed the Emergency Conservation Work Act (ECW), the law that directed the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The program was created to put people to work locally on rural conservation and forestry projects, thereby relieving staggering unemployment and preserving natural resources and promoting environmental conservation.

The program in Alaska differed somewhat from the rest of the country.

• "Outside," the War Department handled the camp operation, education and payroll; and various resource agencies oversaw field activities. In Alaska , without the presence of a large War Department, the USDA Forest Service oversaw all field activities and took over the tasks of camp operation and education (Mobley, 1993).
  
  
• Nationwide the enrollment was open to young men from 18 to 23 years of age. In Alaska the age requirements were dropped, as were restriction on re-enrolling; however, there was a one-year residency requirement. Enrollees were generally middle-aged and often employment was seasonal. Foremen were often local men, often loggers or Forest Service retirees (Rakestraw, 1994).
  
  
• Natives in Alaska were outspoken about racial discrimination in hiring, resulting in greater Native participation in the CCC.

By the end of 1934, the Forest Service in Alaska employed 325 men through the CCC program, 130 of whom were assigned to the Admiralty Island Division based in Juneau. Two years later the enrollment had increased to 1,037 with 245 men in the Admiralty Island Division.

CCC activities in Alaska included air strips, housing, fire and flood control, demolition, communications, sanitation, wells, cabins, trails, roads, bridges, shooting ranges, fences, floats and docks, dams, hatcheries, totem pole restoration, and archaeology. However, in the Admiralty Division the prime work was building recreational areas, shelters and trails for the Admiralty Canoe Route (Rakestraw, 1994).

These shelters include:

• Big Shaheen Cabin
• Distin Lake Shelter (cabin)
• Beaver Lake Dam
• Alexander Lake Shelter (cabin)
• Mole Harbor Shelter
• Hasselborg Creek Shelter (cabin)
• Lake Guerin West Shelter
• Davidson Lake Shelter
• Thayer Lake South Shelter
• Mitchell Bay Shelter
• Windfal Harbor Shelter

Another major CCC project in Southeast Alaska was the construction of a model Native village in what is now Totem Bight State Historical Park near Ketchikan. The program hired skilled carvers to teach young artisans the art of carving and repairing traditional totem poles. The Forest Service recently commissioned a Tlingít master carver to create a new totem pole commemorating the totem restoration project.