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Matt Brockamp. A surveyor I met while working Oregon and California Forest Service contracts. I guess I dragged him up here to Alaska. Here we are surveying a cave near the beach. It’s a BLM historical survey. 14 (h) is its official designation. A survey of an area of archeological or cultural value to the local Native Eskimo tribes. These surveys are always interesting. We call them stealth surveys. They are only for in house use. Where most surveys you want people to easily locate monuments by using flagging, rock mounds, tagged trees, etc., in these stealth surveys you want to keep the advertising of the corner absolutely minimal to avoid grave robbers or people pilfering artifacts. We can’t divulge the locations of these historical surveys and all our maps, field notes and paperwork are required to be handed over to the BLM for disposal after the survey’s completion.
In this particular shot we have a tribrach with a broken bubble. So in the pinch we lay an iPhone on top with its digital bubble app activated for the work around. Just haven’t carried a plumb bob for a long time now. Its all lasers, bubbles, and iPhones in Alaska.
—Daryl Moistner
A 2.057Mb PDF of this article as it appeared in the magazine—complete with images—is available by clicking HERE