198 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



possible agricultural lands in the country. But owing to 

 the fact that Cook's Inlet is, for a great part of the year, 

 choked with broken or solid ice and on account of the 

 inconvenience to navigation presented by the great rise 

 and fall of tides, permanent routes for tapping this rich 

 district must start from the eastern side of the Kenai 

 Peninsula. 



Prince WilUam Sound, therefore, is generally regarded 

 as the scene of Alaska's future development. This 

 beautiful body of water has an extremely irregular coast 

 line. Its great fiords run far into the coast and a num- 

 ber of islands protect it from the full fury of the open 

 ocean. In the number and grandeur of its glaciers 

 Prince William Sound is unsurpassed by any other local- 

 ity in Alaska. They lie on nearly all of the snow-cov- 

 ered mountains and flow imperceptibly down to the 

 heads of the great fiords. The sea never freezes here in 

 winter and there are numerous harbors well protected 

 from the weather. 



Several towns of importance were situated on the 

 shores of Prince William Sound at the time of our visit. 

 I say ''were situated" advisedly, because by the time 

 this book is pubUshed others may have sprung up, as is 

 common in Alaska. 



Most easterly of these is Cordova, situated upon a 

 shallow bay of the same name. This place was estab- 

 lished as a terminus for the Copper River and North- 

 western Railway by the Guggenheim Exploration Com- 

 pany, which spent about SI 7,000,000 constructing the 

 lines from Cordova up the valley of the Copper River as 

 far as the town of Copper Center, with a branch line to 

 the Bering coal field and the great Bonanza copper mine 

 near Kennecott. It leads also toward a new gold strike, 



