MT. MCKINLEY NATIONAL PARK
In 1916 a bill was presented in Congress to establish in Alaska the Mt.
McKinley National Park. All lovers of the country hoped that the
legislation necessary to create this park would not be long in coming.
The Alaskan Range (sometimes called the Alaskan Alps), of which Mt.
McKinley is the culminating peak, has no rival in scenic grandeur. The
snow line is about seven thousand feet. But Mt. McKinley rises twenty
thousand three hundred feet, and for the upper thirteen thousand the
mountain is clad in glaciers and perpetual snows.
The region of the proposed park offered a last chance for the United
States Government to preserve untouched by civilization a great
primeval section in its natural beauty. Many parts of Alaska are famous
for big game. But for mountain sheep, caribou and moose ranging over
wide areas this section is unsurpassed. I have often seen three hundred
sheep in a ten mile journey! And more caribou than I ever dreamed of
existing! At one time a party of us estimated with the naked eye more
than a thousand within half a mile of us and many more straggling off
in the distance.
I have made no mention of the mosquitos which abound in Alaska, but so
many writers have that perhaps it is not necessary to elaborate upon
the subject. It is sufficient to say that here one gives them
respectful attention! Many a wanderer has met his death in the early
days because he was unprepared to fight them off as he plunged through
the swamps and the wilderness. This "respectful attention" is shared by
the animals, especially the caribou, which migrate from place to place,
avoiding the plains where the mosquitos abound. Sometimes they remain
high up in the rugged mountain ridges. Sometimes they even climb the
glaciers. One often sees them in huge droves. They do not stay long in
any one locality except in the Taklat basin and in the vicinity of
Muldrow Glacier. Here they remain during the summer and rear their
young.
On February twenty-sixth, 1917, the bill became a law and the Mt.
McKinley National Park was created. The long dimension of the park
follows the general course of the Alaskan Range from Mt. Russell to
Muldrow Glacier, the Park including all the main range from its
northwest face to and beyond the summit. East of the glacier the range
widens to the north and consists of a number of parallel mountain
ridges separated by broad, open basins.
Moose are plentiful in certain parts of the new park but are not so
commonly seen as sheep and caribou. They cling to the timbered areas
for two reasons. First, because they feed upon the willow and birch
twigs and leaves and the roots of water plants. Second, by nature the
moose is a cautious, wary animal. He is less likely to permit
familiarity than the caribou and remains where he is inconspicuous. The
best hunting grounds for moose are not _within_ the park but in the
lowlands just north of the Alaskan Range.
Bears,--black, brown and grizzly--are here, as they are in many other
parts of Alaska also. Foxes are plentiful. Lynx abound, as do the mink,
marten and ermine, to a limited extent. The marshy lowlands, in
addition to being the abode of the moose, are likewise the paradise of
the beaver. Many a night have I lain in my tent and heard the
whack-whack of their tails on the surface of the water and the splash
when they went in to swim.
There is no point on which Alaska is more in need of wise and careful
legislation than in regard to the game. Game will not last long unless
protected. Already the market hunter is in the field. True, there _are_
game laws in Alaska, but I have been reminded more than once of the
mother who said of her naughty little daughter, "She _has_ manners--but
they're bad!"
The game laws are not strictly enforced and many a sled load of wild
meat finds its way into the towns in winter. Fairbanks is the
destination of most of it. It is a matter of personal knowledge that
from fifteen hundred to two thousand sheep have been taken into this
town each winter for the last three years. And if this is being done
now, what will be the result when the new government railroad is
completed to within fifteen miles of the park? There is but one answer.
The game will disappear rapidly. Forebodings on this point have been
quieted to a certain extent, however, so far as the game in the park
itself is concerned. The law, while it grants miners and prospectors
permission to kill what they need for food, stipulates expressly that
"in no case shall animals or birds be killed in said park for sale, or
removal, or wantonly."
It is the easiest thing in the world to reach Mt. McKinley Park. One
may leave Seattle and within a week be in Anchorage, or Seward. From
here it is but a day's ride to the Park Station. A couple of days in
the saddle and one will find himself in the midst of the herds.
Furthermore, this time will be shortened. It is inevitable that a road
will be built. Then, half a day in a motor and the horseback journey
will be eliminated.
Regarded as a purely business proposition, the creation of this Park
was quite worth while. Other and much less attractive lands advertise
their natural beauties so alluringly that tourists flock to them,
spending millions of dollars for diversion far less pleasurable than
that which may be had right here in our own country. A good road, a
good hotel or two, and this National Park in Alaska will call to her a
much larger percentage of tourists than our government now imagines.
Almost every animal in Alaska has its own particular locality. The
small black bear is the exception. It may be found everywhere. In
southeastern Alaska the shy, black-tail deer is to be seen. It is a
pretty, graceful creature, with a glossy coat, an impudent little black
tail and slender, curving horns. If it were tame one could easily carry
it in his arms. It seldom weighs more than a hundred pounds. Hunters
have made it afraid, however, and unless forced out by starvation, it
seldoms ventures near a human habitation.
At Mt. St. Elias the foxes abound,--blue and silver and sometimes a
black one, rarest and most valuable of all. Four hundred dollars is not
an unusual price for a black fox skin. Sea otters are getting scarce.
The skins of these are valued at seven hundred dollars.
To find the really "Big Game,"--the largest the country affords, the
moose, the huge and dangerous Kodiak bear, the caribou and the mountain
sheep, one should go to the rugged, mountainous peninsula between
Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet. The moose shed their antlers
periodically and I quite agree with a fellow hunter who one day
remarked that he knew of nothing quite so pathetic-looking, so subdued
and sympathy-seeking, so meek and lowly of spirit as a bull moose
without its horns! Neither do I.
The Kodiak bear is dark brown of color. And an exceedingly ugly and
vicious brute as to temper! He is a born fighter. If he suspects that
it is your purpose to interfere with him he will attack you
ferociously. If, however, he does not happen to be hungry and you fail
to bother him his lack of interest in you is often humiliating! He is,
seemingly, impervious to the cold and sleeps in his cave all winter.
The Alaskan miners are great on story-telling and one of them one day
related in my presence an amusing episode which he claimed was a
personal experience. He said that he found himself suddenly in the
immediate presence of a Kodiak bear. It was a position wholly unsought
on his part and, as he remarked, unduly familiar! But he added that it
was a moment when familiarity bred, not contempt, but fear. He had
always heard that a sudden and unusual noise would frighten a bear away
provided he hadn't seen you first! So he began hammering his gold pan
with his pick, making all the din possible with the means at his
command. It failed to work. He spent the night in a tall tree, meekly
descending from the same when the bear, tired of waiting, went next
morning to seek a breakfast elsewhere. Nor was that all. His gold pan
was full of holes from being hammered with his pick!
A cunning and most amusing pet is a black bear cub, and as pets these
are quite common in St. Michael and other parts of Alaska. They dance
and gambol on hind feet, wrestle like human beings, and not
infrequently drink from a bottle as do babies--and men!
The caribou is unquestionably the prettiest animal in Alaska. Its body
is sleek and graceful as that of the antelope. Its back is brown, its
flanks and legs pure white. It has enormous, out-spreading, re-curving
and sharp-pronged antlers, a distinguishing feature of which is that
the first branch of one of them curves directly in front of the
forehead and then spreads straight out to the front into a broad
edge-wise fan which is called a "plow." The caribou roam (in herds) and
feed almost entirely on grass. It is most interesting to watch them
feed in winter. With the "plow" they break through the crust of the
snow. Then they use the horn as a rake, scraping away the snow so that
they may get at the grass underneath.
The seal, the walrus, the reindeer and the polar bear,--all are here.
They are the oldest residents of the north country. But there is one
thing which does _not_ abide with us. This is the serpent. Evidently
Ireland is not the only country from which the good St. Patrick
banished the snakes. The Eskimos and Indians of Alaska probably never
saw one. In fact, it is claimed that no poisonous thing exists here.
But to this I make one exception. The mosquito is still with us in
certain sections of the country. There are none in St. Michael,
however. And no snakes! As a corroboration of this statement I submit
the information that the serpent has no place in either the heraldry or
the basketry of the natives of Alaska. The absence of the snake in the
Northland, however, may be due, not to the influence of St. Patrick,
but to the frigidity of the climate. Anyway, we rejoice that it is so.
The most timid of women may wade barefooted in the marshes without a
shiver! Besides, Alaskans are proverbially kind-hearted and what one of
us would willingly put himself in the position of "Old Man Snyder" of
whom the mid-western poet who wrote under the name of _Ironquill_ once
said:
"Old man Snyder found a snake
Frozen stiffer than a stake
And he tucked it in his vest.
When the saurian became thawed
Mr. Snyder became chawed!
And in one unbroken stream
He proceeded to blaspheme
And eradicate the plug
From a little old brown jug!
Year by year, both day and night,
Snyder tried to cure that bite,
But he didn't have the heft!
So one day he while tug-
Ging at the plug
Caught the jim-jams and got left!
=Moral.=
Frozen saurians are safer!
And it's bitterer than borax
To be gnawed about the thorax
One's humanity to pay for!"