This dataset includes maps of historical lake shorelines with derived lake areas in the southern portion of the Goldstream Valley and the surrounding landscape north of Fairbanks, Alaska, USA. Historical lake margins were mapped for 1949, 1967, and 1985 using 1 m aerial photographs available through U.S. Geological Survey Earth Explorer, and for 2009 using 2.5 m SPOT satellite image mosaics. The study area was a 214 km2 area of Pleistocene-aged yedoma permafrost in the southern portion of the Goldstream Valley. An increasing number of thermokarst lakes and ponds, from 130–275 per year, were identified over the entire study period. Anthropogenic lakes, formed by mining peat, gravel, and gold concentrated in the northwestern extent of Goldstream Valley, were excluded.