Forests of Alaska 



363 



under the homestead, mining, and 

 other laws that permit of alienation of 

 public lands. While considerable areas 

 are held intact for special purposes, 

 such as military and naval reservations 

 and national parks, the great bulk of 

 the land is classified as open public 

 domain, where soil and other resources 

 are available for occupancy and use 

 under laws that permit patenting or 

 leasing. This land is under the jurisdic- 

 tion of the Department of the Interior. 

 Approximately 32,575 square miles 

 (20,840,000 acres), or 5.5 percent of 

 the total area of the Territory, has been 

 designated as national forests. These 

 national forests lie entirely in the well- 

 timbered south-coast region and, in the 

 main, are to be held in permanent 

 Federal ownership for the production 

 of successive timber crops. If tracts are 

 found to be more valuable for such 

 uses as mining, homesteads, homesites, 

 water-power development, industrial 

 sites, and resort areas, however, they 

 are made available for those uses 

 through land patents in some cases and 

 a leasing system in others. 



THROUGHOUT INTERIOR ALASKA, an 

 area larger than Texas, is a mixed 

 forest of small white spruce and Alas- 

 ka white birch, with some cottonwood 

 of various species frequently in mix- 

 ture. These forests occupy the better 

 drained soils of valley bottoms, lower 

 slopes, and low benchlands, to an ele- 

 vation of approximately 2,500 feet, but 

 the local climatic conditions frequently 

 hold the timber line to lower levels. 



The trees sometimes reach a diame- 

 ter of 18 inches, but the average 

 diameter of mature trees is between 10 

 and 12 inches. The height ranges from 

 40 to 50 feet. The stands are fairly 

 dense, and the volume per acre of vir- 

 gin mature stands may be as high as 20 

 cords. Stands of trees of sawmilling size 

 may contain from 6,000 to 8,000 board 

 feet an acre. Ground birch, stunted 

 alder, and willows constitute a fairly 

 dense undergrowth, and the ground 

 cover is a thick mat of moss. Permafrost 

 is prevalent in the region, and because 



of that, and other features of a harsh 

 climate, the rate of growth is slow. 



White men started coming into this 

 region in large numbers about 1900. 

 Since then, extensive, devastating for- 

 est fires and, to a lesser degree, cutting 

 operations have greatly reduced the 

 extent of the virgin timber. Perhaps 

 not more than 20 percent of the origi- 

 nal white spruce-white birch stands are 

 now intact. Reproduction after fire 

 runs strongly to aspen. 



Another forest type, which could 

 well be classed as a brush type, consists 

 of black spruce on wet lowlands. The 

 trees are scattered, gnarled, and rarely 

 more than 6 inches in diameter. Tam- 

 arack and cottonwood of stunted form 

 are the associated tree species. Inter- 

 spersed clumps of willow brush and 

 areas of grass, peat moss, and swamp 

 herbs occupy as much of the ground 

 space as the black spruce and associ- 

 ated trees. 



No one has ever made a systematic 

 field survey and estimate of the area 

 of the different kinds of vegetative 

 cover in interior Alaska. A conservative 

 guess places the area of white spruce- 

 white birch forests, including the 

 burned areas reproducing strongly to 

 aspen, at 100,000 square miles, or 64 

 million acres. The whole type, burned 

 and unburned, can be roughly esti- 

 mated as having an average stand of 5 

 cords an acre, or a total volume of 320 

 million cords. 



Interior Alaska now uses and will 

 likely continue to need large quantities 

 of wood products in connection with its 

 development. Gold mining and dairy 

 and vegetable farming are the prin- 

 cipal local industries, although military 

 defense projects in the past 10 years 

 have contributed substantially to the 

 economy. 



Much of the fuel and construction 

 material needed in mining and on the 

 farms is cut from the local forests. Gut- 

 ting operations, which have been going 

 on since the days of the gold rushes 

 around 1900, and the heavy losses from 

 forest fires have led to near-depletion 

 of the virgin timber for a score of miles 



