The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), more commonly called the Alaskan Pipeline, is a major connection between Northern Alaskan oil fields and the Valdez sea port, where the oil ships off to the lower 48 states for refining. The North-South running pipeline spans 800 miles from the Arctic Ocean at Prudhoe Bay to the Gulf of Alaska at Valdez, passing through Alaskan towns like Wiseman, Bettles, Livengood, Fox, Fairbanks and Glennallen. Over the years, maintenance has proven to be an exceptional challenge, since the pipeline is situated in a wet area, prone to corrosion, and also lies on a fault-line, as well as on the caribou/moose migration route.

“Suddenly people started coming into town,” described JB Carnahan, former police officer in Fairbanks Alaska. “It happened kind of rapidly when it took off. Because I don’t think anybody really believed this monstrous project was going to impact us. I mean, maybe the politicians did, but I think the average guy was just kind of going, ‘Oh sure, we’ve heard this before,’ because this has always been a boom or bust town.

And suddenly, there it was.” When the Trans-Alaskan pipeline project began, a flood of people came to town with $3,000 - $5,000 cash burning holes in their pockets, beautiful women arrived from New York and Florida, welders and construction workers drove up from Oklahoma and Texas, South American and Irish immigrants came to collect a check and everyone from secretaries and teachers, to prostitutes and pimps came looking for their fortune.

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