AMERICAN FORESTRY., 



VOL. 28 



AUGUST, 1922 



NO. 344 



ALASKA S INTERIOR FORESTS 



By John D. Guthrie 



'T'HE forests oi interior Alaska are enormous in ex- 

 tent. Their total area has been estimated all the 

 way from 80 millions up to 150 million acres. They are 

 on the unreserved, public domain of the United States, 

 and so far have been given little or no administration, or 

 any protection from fire. Although the present commer- 

 cial value of this large area of Government timberland 

 is comparatively small, the value of these forests in the 

 future development of this immense region is hardly 

 possible to measure. Alaska as yet has not even the 

 full status of a territory, and thus the title to approxi- 

 mately 99 per cent of its immense area still remains in 

 Federal ownership. She has not yet been the recipient ot 

 large grants of Government land as was the case with all 

 the public-land States and Territories. In the considera- 

 tion of a for- 

 est policy for 

 the nation this 

 immense 

 Govern- 

 ment- - owned 

 forest area 

 should not be 

 overlooked. It 

 is the Govern- 

 ment's business 

 to protect these 

 lands from un- 

 controlled for- 

 e s t fi r e s 

 against the 

 time when they 

 will be vitally 

 needed, not for 

 use in the 

 States, but in 

 the develo])- 

 ment of both 

 mineral and 



agricultural lands of the interior, which development 

 is sure to come. 



The interior of Alaska is still largely an undiscovered 

 country. Exact data concerning the forests of the great 

 interior basins are not yet available. Here is an area 

 comprising not less than 300,000 square miles, or 192,- 

 000.000 acres, of which only a few townships have been 

 surveyed. From the time of the Russians many men have 

 passed over jjortions of this immense area, but they all 



BIRCH AND ASPEN FOREST NEAR EAGLE, U.\ THE YUKON 



The interior forests are for the most part of the woodland type and comparable to the for- 

 ests of northern Maine and eastern Canada, both as to species and mixture. 



have been interested mostly in the mineral wealth of the 

 country, what was in the ground, and not with what grew 

 on the surface. Men have gone into the heart of Alaska 

 primarily for fur and for gold, not for timber. The 

 records they have made do not deal with the acreages of 

 forest land, the geographic range of tree growth, the to- 

 tal stand of timber, the loss by forest fires, or the area 

 burned over things which a forester would be most in- 

 terested in ; these therefore must be approximations. 



There are, however, certain broad statements that may 

 be made concerning the interior forests of Alaska which 

 may not be disputed. These are that there is a very ex- 

 tensive area bearing forest, much of which is of saw tim- 

 ber size ; that the tree species have been pretty accurately 

 identified : that the forest area has been very extensively 



burned - over ; 

 that the forest 

 has ])layed a 

 very important 

 part in the de- 

 velopment o f 

 the country ; 

 and lastly, that 

 apparently i t 

 has not been 

 of very much 

 interest to any- 

 o n e whether 

 the forests 

 were burned 

 or not. 



Of Alaska's 

 coast forests 

 a p p r o X i - 

 niately 90 per 

 cent is included 

 in two Na- 

 tional Forests 

 and these have 

 been under administration since 1902. Her two Na- 

 tional Forests have been self-supporting practically from 

 the date of their transfer to the Forest Service in 1905. 

 These coast forests will undoubtedly become within a 

 com]5aratively short time an important factor in exports 

 of pulp and paper to the United States. It is not believed 

 however that the interior forests will furnish products 

 that will ever prove feasible or practicable for export 

 outside of the Territory of Alaska, nor would such a 



