ARCTIC COASTAL DISTRICT 
BY E. W. NELSON 
Alaska is widely famed for its gold-placers, fur-seals, salmon- 
fisheries, majestic glaciers and awe-inspiring mountains. To these 
and other favors, bestowed by the generous hand of nature, is added 
a bird-life wonderfully rich and varied in comparison with that of the 
same latitudes on the eastern side of North America. This is due to 
more favorable climatic conditions, to the varied physical character 
of the land-area, and to the abundance of small animal-life in the 
ocean, which affords an inexhaustible supply of food to sea-fowl. 
Along the extreme southeast coast of the Territory lies a series 
of heavily forested islands; far to the west are strung the rock-bound, 
treeless islands of the Aleutian chain; to the northward bordering 
the coasts of Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean lies a broad belt of 
arctic tundra, separating the sparsely wooded interior from the sea. 
These coastal plains are cut by the great Yukon, Kuskokwim, and 
Kowak rivers, flowing down from the interior, where they rise on 
the slopes of far-distant mountains. This great region offers a superb 
background for the swarming bird-life that visits it in summer. 
Alaska is situated so far north that its year is divided into only 
two seasons, a short summer and a long, cold winter. From the 
middle of May until the middle of July there is much calm and 
sunny weather, with a delightful temperature. This pleasant period 
is especially favorable to the successful nesting of myriads of birds 
of both land and sea, and enables them to bring their downy young 
through the first few precarious weeks of their lives. It is amazing 
to note the rapidity with which flowers spring up and bloom as soon 
as the snow melts from the tundra; and in sheltered places grasses 
and flowering plants grow rankly, sometimes waist high, even directly 
under the Arctic Circle, as I saw on the shore of Kotzebue Sound. 
Along the coast of Bering Sea the sun sinks only a short distance 
below the horizon during a few hours of the twenty-four, so that in 
June the light at midnight is sufficient to enable one easily to read 
fine print. The birds at this season observe the nightly hours of rest, 
however, with the same regularity shown where night and day are 
definitely marked. At eight or nine o’clock at night all except the 
nocturnal species retire to secluded spots to rest until three or four 
o’clock in the morning. The noise of their many voices dies suddenly 
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