APPENDIX 



FOREST CONDITIONS AND FOREST PROBLEMS IN ALASKA 

 AND PUERTO RICO 



ALASKA 



B. F. HEINTZLEMAN, Assistant Regional Forester, Alaska Region 



The forests of Alaska which will contribute to the general timber 

 supply of the Nation are confined to a narrow mainland strip and 

 islands adjacent, extending for 800 miles from the British Columbia 

 boundary northwest to the entrance of Cook Inlet. The forest type 

 is an extension of that found on the coast of Oregon, Washington, 

 and British Columbia, and consists of heavy dense stands of conifers, 

 principally western hemlock and Sitka spruce with some intermixed 

 western red cedar and Alaska cedar. This type is known as the " coast 

 forest." Its presence on the relatively small section of Alaska men- 

 tioned above is due to the warm Japan current which reaches this 

 shore line and serves to moderate the temperature and provide a 

 heavy precipitation. 



The total area of commercial timberland in the coast-forest type is 

 somewhat more than 6 million acres. Practically all of this is owned 

 by the Federal Government, with more than 98 per cent in national 

 forests and most of the remainder open public domain. The amount 

 of privately owned timberland in Alaska, both in the coast forest and 

 other forest types, is negligible. 



Aside from this coast-forest area Alaska has the vegetative cover 

 types common to the whole extreme northern portio of the American 

 continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Arctic Ocean drain- 

 age areas and the littoral of Bering Sea for a width of 100 to 150 miles 

 are almost wholly treeless, the covering being tundra. The Alaska 

 Peninsula and its extension, the Aleutian Island Chain, are grass- 

 covered. The remainder, which constitutes the major portion of the 

 Territory, is covered with a patchlike arrangement of types embracing 

 coarse grass, brush, tundra, and peat moss, all of which may have 

 some stunted black spruce of pole size; scattered limby trees of white 

 spruce, white birch and cotton wood with intermixed brush; and dense 

 stands of small slow-growing trees of the above species. The last 

 two types, which are the true forest types, constitute the "interior 

 forest." 



The interior forest is a highly important factor in the upbuilding 

 and maintenance of populous and prosperous communities throughout 

 vast sections of the Territory, but it will not be drawn on to supply 

 any material amount of products for the general markets of the United 

 States. 



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