44 Alaskan Science Conference 



and cattle and sheep in Scandinavia, but the mines, manufac- 

 tures and fisheries of Sweden and Norway can support a growing 

 population far better than their agriculture, and the same is 

 true of Alaska. 



A non-agricultural region can be economically useful in three 

 ways: production of raw materials, which, exclusive of agricul- 

 ture and fishing, are minerals, oil, and timber; processing and 

 manufacturing; and provision of services, including trade. (Mili- 

 tary use requires locally principally the service trades, especially 

 when materials and construction labor are imported.) To now, 

 northern and western Alaska has drawn workers from outside 

 only when the first of these, production of such raw materials 

 as whale-oil and gold, has boomed. These activities offered em- 

 ployment to the indigenous people chiefly in the services, for 

 example as dog-team drivers and guides, and in semi-skilled 

 labor in a combination of service and small-scale manufacture, 

 for example as ship's carpenters and deckhands in the great days 

 of steam-boating on the Yukon and, earlier, on the whaling 

 ships. Production in northwest Alaska— which, aside from the 

 reindeer industry, has been entirely a natural-resource use— has 

 been periodic and ^independable, poorly organized, and scarcely 

 planned at all. The only type of production in which the Eski- 

 mos have operated largely and fairly steadily has been trapping. 

 In a more restricted area, Eskimos have produced ivory for orna- 

 ments and knick-knacks. (Since Bristol Bay Eskimos for two 

 generations or more have been so mixed with Indians and others 

 that they can be scarcely recognized as an Eskimo population, 

 their commercial fishing is not included in the above generali- 

 zation.) 



The type of industry that can stabilize Alaskan economy is a 

 varied manufacturing and processing. Along the Railbelt (An- 

 chorage to Fairbanks and environs) this is getting its first small 

 but solid start, although it has been the basis of Southeast Alas- 

 kan economy for sixty years, viz. in the seafood-canning industry. 

 If wood pulp processing can be extended beyond its present be- 

 ginning at Ketchikan, it can provide a new basic industry for 

 the whole Southeast area. So far, these developments have af- 



