FORESTS OF ALASKA 



BY B. E. FERNOW 



LASKA furnishes a field of unusual interest to 

 the student of forest distribution, and it may be 

 worth while to describe and discuss, from 

 both phytographic and economic points of 

 view, the forest conditions of the Territory. 



Alaska may be divided into at least five regions, two 

 forested and three forestless, corresponding to climatic 

 and physical conditions. 



A true forest country is found only along the southern 

 coast, on the islands of the Alexander Archipelago, and 

 in the panhandle of mainland separating the British 

 possessions from the ocean a northward extension of 

 the Pacific coast forest. Here the evenly tempered climate 

 gives rise to forest-covered slopes out of which only the 

 higher elevations with their covering of eternal snow 

 reach above timber-line. 



Separated from this coast by the high sierra of the St. 

 Elias and Fairweather coast ranges, and by mountain 

 ranges farther inland to the north and west, is the great 

 interior basin drained by the Yukon River, with its hills, 

 mountains, and plateaus, which, while in the main an open 

 country, is studded with more or less frequent islands of 

 forest growth varying in density and development. The 



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