WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALASKA 



199 



Photograph by ff. C. Fassett, V. S. F. C, Steamer Albatross. 



HUBBARD GLACIER, YAKUTAT BAY, ALASKA 

 This great glacier along the glorious coast is but one of the many scenic wonders which await the traveler to our great northwestern territory. 



from an increased production of copper, there were no 

 war industries to make good these losses. 



Considerable parts of Alaska are passing through the 

 stage of the deserted mining camp. Ninety per cent of 

 the population of Nome at her highest have left that 

 great placer camp. The jest goes that the Government 

 railroad reached Fairbanks just in time to bring the peo- 

 ple out. Low returns or actual losses in mining low- 

 grade gold ore threaten a further slump. Even the great 

 salmon packing industry has become more and more 

 precarious and less profitable owing apparently to a 

 depleted stock of salmon. 



The white population of Alaska seems to have dropped 

 nearly one-third between 191 5 and 1919. Yet it is gen- 

 erally agreed that the primary need of the Territory is 

 not people. The Alaska Advisory Committee, appointed 

 by the Secretary of the Interior, says in its report of 

 June 11, 1920: "Under present industrial conditions it is 

 undesirable to make special efforts to attract nun without 

 capital to Alaska. It would be a mistake to draw t 1 

 Alaska a greater number of men than can be absorbed by 

 the existing industrial development. What Alaska needs is 

 the development of industries to give employment to labor." 



In other words, Alaska needs capital first. With the 

 exception of the prospector for minerals, Alaska is not 

 yet a region which can be developed by the individual 

 pioneer after the manner of our Western States. The 

 Territory must have capital, first and foremost, to ex- 

 pand her forest, fish, and mineral industries. A de- 

 mand for labor, a market for home-grown farm crops, 



and better transportation service will follow in its train. 



Let it first be said and reiterated that there is no 

 resource in Alaska which is not open to exploration and 

 use. The 20 million acres of National Forest have, since 

 their creation, furnished every sawmill on the Alaskan 

 Coast with logs, many fish canneries with their packing 

 cases, and many mines with their timbers. They are the 

 source of high-grade spruce lumber which is being ship- 

 ped in growing quantities to the Central and Eastern 

 States. They have been used freely by salmon canneries, 

 fertilizer plants, fur farms any form of industrial en- 

 terprise afoot and for settlements and communities. 

 Wood pulp plants are now being established in them on 

 the strength of the supply of timber assured for long 

 periods and at reasonable terms. The Alaskan coal 

 fields have been open to development since the passage 

 of the coal leasing law in 1914, and the oil deposits since 

 the enactment of the oil leasing law, tardily indeed, in 

 1920. A number of water powers have been developed 

 on National Forests and on other public lands in Alaska 

 under old public land laws, notwithstanding their inade- 

 quacy. The water power act of 1920 provides a fair and 

 adequate plan for the development of these resources 

 on a par with coal, oil, and timber. 



Has Alaska been over-conserved ? Yes and no. The 

 use of her coal and oil deposits was blocked for several 

 years in each instance after the withdrawal of these re- 

 sources from appropriation. Powerful interests did their 

 best to kill the coal and oil leasing bills because they 

 wished to kill the whole conservation program. Just as 



