152 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



the suppl}' of Yukon salmon should become seriously curtailed wide- 

 spread suffering and death would in many seasons be visited on the 

 natives. 



The question of furnishing food for the whites is less urgent, but 

 is not without importance. It was brought to our attention that with 

 the price of all articles of food rapidly rising, while wages in the 

 interior of Alaska have shown practically no increase during recent 

 years, the presence of a cheap source of food is of value. 



But one of the most important phases of the salmon question, 

 which concerns whites and natives alike, is in relation to the dog. 

 The whole scheme of things in the sparsely populated Yukon wilder- 

 ness is predicated on the dog, and the use of the dog necessitates 

 dried salmon. The winter is the only time for travel except along 

 the waterways of Alaska, and winter travel is impossible without the 

 dog team. Dogs are equally indispensable as draft animals and pack 

 animals. Transportation of the winter mails over thousands of miles 

 of the interior of Alaska must be accomplished by dog team. Men 

 of the Army and the Signal Corps, like all other people in Alaska, 

 are dependent on the dog whenever business makes it necessary for 

 them to undertake winter travel. Fort Gibbon alone needs 40 tons 

 of dried salmon each j^ear to feed the dogs that they find indis- 

 pensable in their work. Prospectors need them to carry their sup- 

 plies into the hills. Wood choppers require them to haul in the 

 wood. Indians must have them on their long hunting and trapping 

 expeditions, and without them can neither secure meat for their 

 families nor furs to exchange for the other necessaries of life. 



The dog is as essential in Alaska as is the horse in other regions, 

 and the only acceptable dog feed is dried salmon. Various substi- 

 tutes have been tried out when salmon could not be procured. They 

 were used extensively by the " dog-mushers " of 1919, when dried 

 salmon often could not be had at any price. Fresh meat was used, 

 and enormous numbers of caribou and moose were slaughtered for 

 this purpose. But it is impossible to carry sufficient meat for many 

 days, and the supply is precarious. Furthermore, the dogs do not 

 thrive and work well on this diet. A diet of cereals and fat in some 

 form was extensively used. Stocks of rice, flour, corn meal, and bacon 

 were heavily drawn on. Dogs traveled well on a ration of corn meal 

 and bacon, but the expense was almost prohibitive, and there was the 

 labor of cooking up each night in camp a meal for the dogs after the 

 exhausting travel of the day with the temperature perhaps 50° 

 below zero and a weary famished team waiting to be fed. Dried 

 salmon forms a light condensed food which contains all the elements 

 needed to keep a hard-working team in excellent condition, and it is 

 always ready to be fed without preparation. There is no acceptable 

 substitute, and there is not in Alaska any divergence of opinion on 

 this subject. Xo single need in the interior of Alaska is more gen- 

 erally or more urgently felt than dried salmon for its various uses. 



It is clear, then, that the Yukon and the Kuskokwim offer salmon 

 problems which ai-e not pressing on any other Alaskan rivers with 

 the exception of the Copper River. These streams drain the far 

 northern interior districts of Alaska with long severe winters and 

 the briefest of summers. The inhabitants are few in number and 

 are distributed widely over a wilderness which is largely without 



