Doug Vandegraft

Doug Vandegraft is originally from Southern California.  He attended Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and earned degrees in Geography and Cartography.  In 1983 he moved to Anchorage to work as a Cartographer for the Bureau of Land Management.  In 1986 he transferred to the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).  While in Anchorage he attended the University of Alaska and earned a degree in Surveying and Mapping Science.  

​

The FWS assigned mapping projects to Doug that sent him to locations all over Alaska.  It was during these years that he became interested in Alaska’s historic bars.

​

In 2000, Doug was promoted and become the first Chief Cartographer of the FWS.  He relocated to Washington DC where he began his formal research on the historic bars of Alaska.  In 2010 he transferred to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, where he became the first Chief of the Geospatial Services Division.  In 2018 he retired from the Federal Government.

​

In 2014, the first edition of A Guide to the Notorious Bars of Alaska was published.  That year, Doug gave his first Notorious Bars of Alaska presentation at the Alaska Historical Society Conference in Seward.  In 2015, he led his first bar tour, which was of Fourth Avenue in Anchorage.