Pipeline Games

Over the past several weeks we’ve shared with you images of Alaska- and Arctic-themed board games. Today, in the final installment of the series…

The PIPELINE!

Here’s “Alaska Pipeline: The Energy Crisis Game,” produced by an Anchorage company called Pipeline Games, Ltd., in 1973:

Each of the game’s four characters—the roughneck, the professor, the tycoon, and the bespectacled woman—teach important facts about the pipeline, all designed to engender support for the project that was then still in its pre-construction planning phase.

Here’s the “Alaska Oil Game”:

In this game, produced in 1978 when the pipeline was up and running, players draw cards to move either forward or backward. When oil is moving down the line, move forward nine spaces:

When an environment review is required, go back three. (In this game, environmental protection is obviously a losing strategy…)

There are, of course, dozens if not hundreds of other Alaska board games that have been produced and played over the decades. This series has focused on board games, but we’ve all seen Alaska-themed playing cards, dominoes, puzzles, etc. A few years ago the Alaska State Museum exhibited “Jeff Brown’s Great Alaska Game Show.” Visit the online exhibit here: museums.alaska.gov/online_exhibits/AlaskaGameShow.html

Previous posts in this board game series can be found here:

http://49history.blogspot.com/2013/11/gaming-for-arctic-adventure.html

http://49history.blogspot.com/2013/10/gaming-for-gold-part-ii.html

http://49history.blogspot.com/2013/09/gaming-for-gold.html