﻿NO. 15 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I92I 53 



Doctor Aldrich left Seattle May 30. The steamship made some 

 stops for unloading freight, enabling him to collect one day at Skag- 

 way and one day at Valdez. The coast region is fairly familiar to 

 tourists, with its innumerable islands, steep shore-line, snow-capped 

 mountains and numerous glaciers (figs. 52-56). Seward was reached 

 on June 9. The government railroad begins at this point and close con- 

 nections were made with a waiting train. The railroad passes over 

 rugged mountains in the Kenai peninsula close to several large 

 glaciers ; it then descends to sea-level at Turnagain Arm, keeping near 

 the shore line to Anchorage. This was the first collecting point which 

 might be considered to represent the fauna of the interior. Although 



Fig. 52. — Cannery near Juneau, Alaska. 



it is on tide-water it is behind the coast range and has the dry climate 

 characteristic of the interior. The town is on a level glacial plain, 

 several miles wide, covered with a light forest and having a thin soil 

 upon c^uite recently deposited gravel. The forest is composed of 

 spruce, aspen, birch, alder and willow. After several days collecting 

 here the journey northward was resumed. Steel had been laid as far 

 as Hurricane, 285 miles from Seward. On arriving here Doctor 

 Aldrich was furnished a horse by the Alaskan Engineering Commis- 

 sion and rode along the right-of-way for 85 miles across Broad Pass 

 and down the Nenana River to Healy, which was at the time the 

 terminus of the rails laid southward from Nenana on the Tanana 

 River. Only casual collecting was done until Healy was reached, but 

 here it was necessary to wait several days for baggage to be brought 

 from Hurricane by wagon. This proved to be a very good collecting 



