ARCTIC COASTAL DISTRICT 



BY E. W. NELSON 



Alaska is widely famed for its gold-placers, fur-seals, salmon- 

 fisheries, majestic glaciers and awe-inspiring mountains. To these 

 and other favors, bestowed by the generous hand of nature, is added 

 a bird-life wonderfully rich and varied in comparison with that of the 

 same latitudes on the eastern side of North America. This is due to 

 more favorable climatic conditions, to the varied physical character 

 of the land-area, and to the abundance of small animal-life in the 

 ocean, which affords an inexhaustible supply of food to sea-fowl. 



Along the extreme southeast coast of the Territory lies a series 

 of heavily forested islands ; far to the west are strung the rock-bound, 

 treeless islands of the Aleutian chain ; to the northward bordering 

 the coasts of Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean lies a broad belt of 

 arctic tundra, separating the sparsely wooded interior from the sea. 

 These coastal plains are cut by the great Yukon, Kuskokwim, and 

 Kowak rivers, flowing down from the interior, where they rise on 

 the slopes of far-distant mountains. This great region offers a superb 

 background for the swarming bird-life that visits it in summer. 



Alaska is situated so far north that its year is divided into only 

 two seasons, a short summer and a long, cold winter. From the 

 middle of May until the middle of July there is much calm and 

 sunny weather, with a delightful temperature. This pleasant period 

 is especially favorable to the successful nesting of myriads of birds 

 of both land and sea, and enables them to bring their downy young 

 through the first few precarious weeks of their lives. It is amazing 

 to note the rapidity with which flowers spring up and bloom as soon 

 as the snow melts from the tundra; and in sheltered places grasses 

 and flowering plants grow rankly, sometimes waist high, even directly 

 under the Arctic Circle, as I saw on the shore of Kotzebue Sound. 



Along the coast of Bering Sea the sun sinks only a short distance 

 below the horizon during a few hours of the twenty-four, so that in 

 June the light at midnight is sufficient to enable one easily to read 

 fine print. The birds at this season observe the nightly hours of rest, 

 however, with the same regularity shown where night and day are 

 definitely marked. At eight or nine o'clock at night all except the 

 nocturnal species retire to secluded spots to rest until three or four 

 o'clock in the morning. The noise of their many voices dies suddenly 



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