published by the National Geographic Society

“ The establishment of a town at Nenana, where the railroad crosses Tanana River, has even now brought a market for game some 50 miles nearer the sheep hills of the Toklat.
Already homesteds have been taken up along the railroad, and in a few years this untouched wilderness will hear the sound of the mower and the clatter of railroad trains. If the park is established now, the game can be saved and will remain for other generations to enjoy. If action is postponed a few years, the market hunter and sportsman will have done their work and the game will have gone forever. ”

“ Ten times as much appears no greater unless there are trees, houses, or some such familiar objects beyond, by which one can form an independent judgment of their distance. In a desert country without such objects, we were frequently unable to form any estimate at all of the size of the various features which met our view.
We had an amusing instance of this when, sending a man to climb the great ash slide to serve as a scale for a picture, I found that he was hardly visible to the naked eye and utterly lost in the picture. ”

“ When one recalls that the Giant Forest is the largest intact body of trees of this species in existence, with the General Sherman as its king—a wonderful specimen 103 feet in circumference, 280 feet tall, as high as the dome of the National Capitol [1] —our hearts thrill that these masterpieces of nature have been rescued from the axe. ”

“ Many parts of Alaska are famous for big game, and hunters have come half around the world to that territory to obtain trophies of their skill. It has been my good fortune to visit several of the choicest game ranges in Alaska, notably that east of Nenana River, adjacent to the Mount McKinley district, and the much praised White River country. Both of these regions are well stocked with game, but for abundant sheep, caribou, and moose over wide areas neither of them compares with the area within the limits of the new game preserve. ”

“ On the other hand, the splendid coal deposits and the abundant supplies of iron make British industries largely free from blockade dangers. Producing one-fourth of the world's coal, the United Kingdom has little to fear from a coal shortage, no matter what the character of a blockade around her.
The port of London handles approximately one-third of all the exports and imports of the United Kingdom. The ships of the whole world visit it in normal times, and there is scarcely a merchant flag that civilization knows that is missing in the Thames in other than war times. ”

“ Church, jaded from the continual hard work, had given out and we left him behind with the packs, much against his wishes, several hundred feet below, while Folsom and I went forward a little farther to see what we could discover. We were both tired from our hard climb the day before, and traveling transversely across the gullied “bad lands” of the mud-flow, which was necessitated by the condition of the canyon below, was very laborious; so that I was ready to turn back satisfied with having seen through the pass and, as I believed, having laid another ghost. ”

“ In some places the ground was warm beneath our feet, and had we not been solicitous for our shoe leather doubtless we could have found places as hot as we might have desired.
Although there is every reason to suppose that the vigor of the action is variable, there was in most cases no evidence of explosive action, such as remnants of ejecta around the vent. Most of the steam jets came out of cracks in the level mud floor of the valley. But some, on the contrary, had built up small cones around themselves or formed a small-sized crater by hurling away the ground around the vent. ”

“ Manchester, with its splendid canal opening up an inland city to world trade; Belfast, with its famous shipbuilders; Portsmouth and Plymouth, on the south coast, with their extensive port works; Grimsby, Hull, and Aberdeen, with the largest fishing fleets in existence; Newlyn and Brixham, homes of the mackerel fisheries, and Milford and Fleetwood, the ports the hake has made famous, are all places full of enterprise, which have been even more active since the war began than they ever were before a “submarine peril” was dreamed of. ”

“ On first thought one is apt to be more awed by a force that could hurl great rocks through the air than one which merely throws up ashes and dust. But when one reflects that ash and pumice are rock blown to fragments by the violence of the explosion, he realizes that much mightier forces are involved than would be required to toss boulders about.
Crossing the river In spite of the desolation of the valley, even in the shadow of the volcano, some few remnants of plants persisted in sheltered nooks on the steep mountain side. ”

“ Moose are wary animals Moose are very plentiful in certain parts of the new park, but are not so commonly seen as sheep and caribou. As their food supply consists of willow and birch twigs and leaves and the succulent roots of water plants, they stay much of the time in timbered and brushy areas, where they are inconspicuous. By nature, too, the moose is a wary animal and permits much less familiarity than the caribou.
The best moose country in this region lies in the lowlands north of the main Alaska Range, outside of the boundaries of the proposed park ”

“ The mountains at the head of Toklat and Teklanika rivers literally swarm with the magnificent white bighorn sheep, which are elsewhere extremely wary and difficult to approach, but which in summer are here so little disturbed that they move off only when one comes to close range. A day's travel along one of these valleys will usually afford the casual traveler a view of many bands of sheep. The sheep range on the lower slopes of the mountains, especially in the upper reaches of the streams, near the glaciers at the valley heads, or even in the valley bottoms. ”

“ It was of the utmost importance for the welfare of the country that the ground be covered with vegetation, regardless of the value of the plants making the cover. Of all the native plants, the one which could grow through the deepest ash and, once through, could spread most rapidly on the bare surface was the field horsetail (Equisetum arvense) . This is a common weed of railway embankments and such places with us. In Kodiak scattered individuals were frequent before the eruption, though they formed no noticeable element in the landscape. ”

“ With a completed wagon road built from the railway, it should be an easy half day's journey of 80 miles by automobile from the railroad to the center of the park, the whole route traversing mountains of wonderful scenic beauty and teeming with big game. ”

“ We knew these clouds must be due, in part at least, to the activity of the volcano, because of the strong sulphurous odor which filled the air, but could not tell how much was to be attributed to this cause and how much was simply due to the greater altitude of the volcano.
As we came closer we could see that the clouds were in rapid motion, coming straight up out of the crater. What if we should reach the rim only to poke our noses into a steam jet through which we could see nothing! ”

“ And near the eastern border of the park, at the Nenana coal field, the traveler can see how Nature, by her generous placing and preservation of coal within the rocks, makes possible the industrial prosperity of our nation by furnishing the fuel needed for its manufactures.
Our last chance The Mount McKinley region now offers a last chance for the people of the United States to preserve, untouched by civilization, a great primeval park in its natural beauty. Historically this country is new. ”

“ Even Walter, however, was very nervous on the crater rim, keeping sheltered behind a rock a good share of the time and shifting about uneasily as he watched us work, finally remarking when he thought we had overstayed our time. “Can't make nothing up here.”
The bear hunter of Kodiak Walter was one of those strong characters whom one finds among all classes, who stand out superior to their fellows. Deprived of his right hand by a hunting accident in his youth, he has so overcome the handicap that with his one hand he can accomplish more than most men with two. ”

“ The wonderful scenery of the canyon Our distant view from the mountain of the second Katmai Valley, with its lakes, and especially the dam, which had caused the great flood, made us anxious to penetrate the canyon and examine the upper valley in detail. But we found it impossible to penetrate beyond the mouth of the canyon, being stopped on the brink of a 500-foot precipice, which we named Prospect Point. ”

“ The vast proportions of the British shipping industry which the German submarine blockade is attempting to destroy defies our comprehension. In normal years an average of 214 ships arrive at United Kingdom ports from foreign waters every day in the year. In addition to that, there are 780 arrivals from home ports every day in the year of ships in the coastwise trade.
British merchant ships have a greater aggregate tonnage than those of all the other countries of the world together. The merchant marine of that nation includes nearly 12,000 ships of all kinds. ”

“ It is true that there is fairly abundant big game and much country of great scenic beauty outside the boundaries, but we entered a game paradise and a land of unrivaled scenery when we crossed the park line. ”

“ The miners from the Kantishna report that caribou may always be seen in great numbers on this range.
There is a striking difference between the actions of caribou and those of the bighorn sheep when surprised by man. A sheep, once aroused, knows exactly where he wants to go, and usually starts, without a moment's hesitation, on the shortest route to some rugged mountain mass. He may stop to look around and appraise the danger, but he is sure to follow the route he first chose. ”

“ The particles of ash are all very sharp, sharper than ordinary sand. Indeed, volcanic ash forms the basis of such scouring agents as “Old Dutch Cleanser.” The ash is also finer and much lighter than shore sand, so that it is more easily carried by the wind. Consequently this sand blast is a very different thing from the sand drift common among beach dunes. Standing before it is like facing a blast of “Old Dutch Cleanser” in one's face and is at times exceedingly unpleasant. ”

“ Before this article is published the necessary legislation may have been completed and the dream of this new park have become a reality; but in any event every one of us who loves outdoor life should realize what a wonderful country—a country of impressive mountain scenery and big game—we have in that northern territory, and how seriously the wild life of that region is menaced. ”

“ I have many times seen a caribou, after he has discovered me at a distance of no more than 100 yards, stand and look, snort, lower his head half a dozen times, then run wildly off for a short distance, turn back toward me, repeat the same maneuvers, and make several false, zigzag sprints, all within easy gunshot, before he finally ran to leeward, got the man scent, and started off for good in great panic. In this region, with proper caution and a favoring wind, one can approach within 200 yards or less of a band of caribou, even in the open, before they take alarm and move away. ”

“ Wherever the mountains were precipitous and too steep for the ash to stick, it slid down into the valleys, covering the lower slopes with great fans of sand, which stand the critical angle ready to slide down at the slightest provocation. Some of these ash slopes are more than a thousand feet high. Their surface is loose, rolling sand, into which one sinks to his ankles, while new sand continually slides down on to him.
Often the whole slide above one will begin to move and then he is placed in a tread-mill, where he must keep moving or slide to the bottom. ”

“ Caverns formed by snow melting beneath the ash The day after crossing Soluka Creek we climbed the mountain to the west in hopes of seeing the volcano, for we feared lest the fine weather which had favored us would come to an end before we should attain our object. Our quest, however, was vain, for when we reached the summit we found that another summit, not marked on our map, cut off our view so that we could not see Mount Katmai. ”

“ As a hunter keeps a record of the bears he has killed by the notches in his gunstock, so the big tree keeps an account of the years it has lived by rings concealed within its trunk. Every year that it lives it grows in girth a tiny bit—in youth faster, in age slower, in fat years more and in lean ones less. ”

“ Not man, for never yet in all his existence has he had continuity of purpose enough to plan 2,000 years ahead. The mutations of time in twenty centuries leave only here and there a silent monument to speak of the past, and even these have been the prey of generations coming after their builders. ”

“ Where cultivation destroyed the weeds, the land is still absolutely bare except for an occasional weed which escaped destruction by the plow. The fallow ground, on the other hand, is a mass of fireweed whose bloom is conspicuous for miles.
The sand blast While these weeds protect the surface of the fallow ground, ash from the bare surface is picked up in clouds by every wind, forming a sand blast which is very hard on the few plants that have persisted. All of them are lopped over before the wind, and their lower leaves are cut to pieces by the sharp sand or are buried beneath it. ”

“ In other parts of Alaska caribou at times appear in huge droves as they migrate from place to place, but they stay only a short time in any one locality. In the Toklat basin and in the vicinity of Muldrow Glacier, however, the caribou are at home, and they remain there throughout the summer to rear their young.
Differences in animal behavior There is abundant indication that this is a permanent range. Deeply worn trails form a veritable labyrinth along the stream flats, and bedding grounds, old and new, occur everywhere. ”

“ The sheep, being of choicest flavor, are taken first, but the moose and caribou will not escape after the sheep become harder to get.
The absence of a supply of wild meat in Fairbanks and other interior towns will not work no hardship on the residents, for there is already a well-established trade in refrigerated domestic meat, and the dealers will readily supply all the fresh meat for which there is a demand, and at a cost little, if any, above that charged by the market hunters for game. ”

“ Two more new volcanoes of the first magnitude Up this valley was a prodigious column of steam. As we drew nearer we saw that the main body of this steam was rising from a central mass of rock, surrounded by a comparatively low ring of cinders, the whole extending across the valley and blocking further progress. This I interpret as a plug of lava being slowly pushed up through a vent which was formerly rather violently explosive; so that instead of building a high cinder cone, most of the ejecta were scattered far and wide and only a small ring was formed around the vent. ”