project date: 2000 | by peter reedijk

Inupiat Eskimos had long known about the huge amounts of black gold beneath the frozen rock and sand near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Then the Trans Alaska Oil Pipeline System was authorized in 1973. In the next three and a half years, 70,000 people worked to build the necessary infrastructure: the Dalton Highway, the Pipeline, and related facilities.

Today, the Dalton Highway is a thousand-mile-round-trip from bustling Fairbanks, Alaska to the edge of the world - beyond the Arctic Circle to the frozen shore of the Arctic Ocean - Prudhoe Bay. The diversity of landscapes over this long drive created an interesting design challenge. Sea Reach was responsible for the design and fabrication of over fifty 48" x 24" wayside exhibits and twelve orientation kiosks.

What captured our imagination here, were the extremes - both in sunlight and in temperature. In the winter, this is a dark, frozen landscape with temperatures of fifty degrees below zero - so cold that the ground stays frozen year-round in a state called permafrost. In the summer, temperatures soar to over 100 degrees F and the sun shines late into the night. This inspired a color palette rich in indigo and bright yellow. Each exhibit has a sunny yellow background with a blend of lavender and deeper blues, signaling the transition between night and day, winter and summer, cold and warm.