American Big Game in its Haunts 



Our boat made a brief call at Homer, in Cook 

 Inlet, one of the starting points for the famous 

 Kenai shooting grounds. This inlet was named 

 for the renowned voyager, who hoped that it 

 would furnish a water passage for him to Hud- 

 son's Bay. 



The trees stop at Cook Inlet, there being only 

 a few on the western shore. To the south the 

 wooded line intersects the Kadiak group of islands, 

 and we find the northeastern part of Kadiak, as 

 well as the whole of Wood and Afognak, except 

 the central portion of the last, well covered with 

 spruce. 



The absence of forests makes it often possible 

 to see for miles over the country, and explains why 

 the Barren Grounds of Alaska offer such won- 

 derful opportunities for bear hunting. There are 

 bears all along the southern coast of the peninsula, 

 but in the timber there, as elsewhere, the bears 

 have all the best of it. 



On leaving Cook Inlet, we kept a southerly 

 course through the gloomy Barren Islands which 

 mark the eastern boundary of the much-dreaded 

 Shelikoff Straits, and early one morning passed 

 Afognak, and made Wood Island landing, where 

 we were most hospitably received by the North 

 American Fur Company's people. Wood Island, 



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