TO USE ALASKA^S FORESTS 



'C'OR the first time in our history we have an oppor- 

 tunity, in Alaska, to guide the development of an 

 immense forest region from the standpoint of permanent 

 national interests," declares Col. W. B. Greeley, chief of 

 the Forest Service, United States Department of Agri- 

 culture, in his annual report. "This," says the Forester, 

 "does not mean putting the forests of Alaska under lock 

 and key. It means the expansion of her forest industries 

 as rapidly as there is a market for their products, but 

 within the limits and under the control necessary to keep 

 the land productive and make the supply of raw material 

 for manufacture into lumber and paper perpetual. 



"In considering ways and means for bettering condi- 

 tions in the Territory, it is important that we do not lose 

 sight of the bearing of her re.sources upon the national 

 timber supply. The National Forests of Alaska contain 

 20.000,000 acres arid over 75,000,000,000 feet of timber of 

 a quality suitable for general consumption. This is 

 equivalent to nearly 6 per cent of all the timber in the 

 Continental United States. It includes 100.000,000 cords 

 of pulp wood, whose serviceability for the manufacture 

 of paper is fully established by existing commercial prac- 

 tice. Wisely handled, a paper industry can be developed 

 in Alaska as permanent as the paper industries of Scandi- 

 navia, and capable of supplying a third of the present 

 paper consumption of the United States. This is an op- 

 portunity which should not be thrown away by inviting 

 unrestrained and destructive exploitation. 



"There has been much loose and ignorant criticism of 

 the National Forests of Alaska," continues Col. Greeley, 

 "as imposing bars and locks upon the development of her 

 timber resources. Since these National Forests were 

 placed under administration in 1906 they have been open 

 freely for the use of timber and other commercial re- 

 sources under regulations of an exceedingly liberal and 

 simple character. They are being cut today to the ex- 

 tent of about 45,000,000 board feet annually. They fur- 

 nish 86 per cent of all the timber used in the Territory ; 

 they supply every sawmill on the Alaskan coast with 

 logs ; they furnish a large proportion of the piling, lum- 

 ber and box shooks used in Alaska's fish industry ; they 

 supply the great bulk of the timber used in the mines in 

 their portion of the Territory. Sites have been readily 

 and freely obtained within them for a large number of 

 salmon canneries, sawmills, villages, fox farms, and 

 commercial establishments of every character adapted to 

 this region. 



"The Forest Service has labored steadily to promote 

 the establishment of a jjaper industry in Alaska, which 

 promises to be one of its most important industrial de- 

 velopments. The terms offered to pai>er manufacturers 

 are, indeed, more flexible and more favorable to the 



operator than in the case of any public timberlands in 

 Canada, with whom comparisons have frequently been 

 drawn. Two sales of pulp timber, aggregating 700,000,- 

 000 feet, have been made, and there are many pending 

 applications and inquiries from responsible sources. Just 

 as rapidly as bonafide undertakings for the building up 

 of forest industries in the Territory take form, they are 

 receiving and will receive every form of encouragement 

 from the Forest Service consistent with the public in- 

 terest in maintaining permanent production from Alas- 

 ka's forests. 



"The primary needs of Alaska are transportation, par- 

 ticularly marine transportation, and a decentralized ad- 

 ministration of public resources and affairs in the Terri- 

 tory itself," asserts the Chief Forester. "The National 

 Forests of Alaska have always been administered in all 

 respects, except the more important transactions and 

 questions of policy, by supervisors and rangers in the 

 Territory. In recognition of the need for the fullest de- 

 centralization, however, a separate National Forest dis- 

 trict covering the Territory was created on January 1, 

 1921, under the direction of a resident District Forester. 

 Ninety-five per cent of the business of these National 

 Forests does not pass beyond Alaska. A further step is 

 desirable. There is need for correlating closely the local 

 administrative activities of the Forest Service with those 

 of other Federal agencies in Alaska and of the Territorial 

 Government for settling currently any questions of over- 

 lapping jurisdiction and for securing coordinated action 

 as new developments involving different agencies present 

 themselves. This can be accomplished readily by or- 

 ganizing the chief local administrative officers of the Fed- 

 eral Government, together with the Governor, into an 

 Alaskan council. The existence of such a body could not 

 fail to facilitate the efforts of the Forest Service to make 

 the National Forests in Alaska as beneficial as possible 

 to the people of the TerritOiry." 



The Forester points out that in the administration of 

 the National Forests of Alaska the fact must not be over- 

 looked that the Territory is part of the United States, 

 and that its forests are part of our National Forest re- 

 sources, just as its agricultural problems are related to 

 our national agricultural development and its fish are 

 part of our national food supply. 



"There is no more reason," he says, "why a separate 

 and different system should be set up for dealing with the 

 public forests of Alaska than there is for setting up such 

 a system for each State. Alaska needs the application to 

 her forests ])roblems of the experience, technical knowl- 

 edge and organization provided by the Forest Service : 

 while the policy followed should be at one with that of the 

 entire country, of which Alaska is simply a part." 



