426 
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 
tact with the snow-covered coastal 
ranges and the glacier-fihed valleys, pro- 
duces a most extraordinary precipitation 
in rain or snow according to the season. 
To the north, Bering Sea remains 
clogged with floating ice well into sum- 
mer, and when the open water finally 
permits navigation to the Yukon delta 
and beyond, the warm moist air of the 
Japanese current, passing freely over 
the Aleutian chain, comes in contact witli 
the cooler waters beyond and creates a 
dense and almost perpetual summer fog. 
Sometimes it may take several days to 
find and effect a landing on the Pribilof, 
or fur-seal islands, and then, like as not, 
the islands are finally located by the cry 
of the seal pups or the pungent odors 
from the breeding rookeries. 
In a similar way the land area of 
Alaska has two distinct divisions. To 
the south and the east of the Alaska 
Range the country is rugged and moun- 
tainous, with valleys great and small and 
rivers swift and numerous, as necessary 
incidents, while to the north and north- 
east it is low and rolling, the streams 
more sluggish and separating into many 
channels on approaching the Pacific and 
Arctic coasts. Climatically the interior 
cannot be divided so readily. At the 
same altitude and period it is warmer in 
summer than on the coast and much 
colder in winter, the local variations oc- 
curring in the mountainous country, as 
might be expected, where the elevations 
range from 2,000 to 20,000 feet. 
Of the two big-game animals particu- 
larly sought on this trip, one, the moose, 
was to furnish, if successful, a vale- 
dictory chapter of its many years' obser- 
vation, and in the most westerly and 
northerly of the five districts into which 
the writer had endeavored to divide the 
continental range of this animal,* and 
the other was the beautiful white sheep 
of the subarctic mountains, a variety 
w^ith which I had no personal acquaint- 
ance, but now desired to cultivate in an 
entirely friendly way. 
To. stalk, study, and photograph for 
the last time the largest, most unique, 
and impressive of our antlered animals, 
*See articles by George Shiras, 3rd, in the 
Nationai, Geographic Magazine, 1906 and 
1908. 
and then when this was accomplished to 
seek out on the rough mountain tops the 
snowy descendants, or perhaps in reality 
the progenitors of the Big Horn sheep 
of the Rockies, constituted a program 
sufficient in itself, though plenty of sen- 
sitive plates were in reserve for any 
other animals or birds worthy of por- 
traiture. 
To obtain satisfactory results from a 
first and rather brief exploration into a 
new and unsettled country, I think as 
much depends upon the comparative ac- 
cessibility of the game field as upon the 
comparative abundance of the game 
itself. 
The Kenai Peninsula, lying between 
Cook Inlet on the west and Prince Wil- 
liam's Sound on the east, distant 1,500 
miles from Seattle, was selected as not 
only the most accessible in territory and 
in the abundance of its game, but be- 
cause in this favored region the moose 
and mountain sheep reached their high- 
est perfection in physical development 
and, what was of equal importance, were 
to be found with certainty in well-de- 
fined ranges in this semi-island home. 
THE KENAI PENINSULA A MINIATURE 
ALASKA 
It is seldom that a small, semi-de- 
tached portion of a large and diversified 
country can satisfactorily portray the 
whole, not only in the romantic history 
of its discovery and early explorations, 
but in those present-day conditions, 
where the climate, topography, and eco- 
nomic resources excite attention and 
comparison. Were all of Alaska erased 
from the map except the Kenai Penin- 
sula and its immediately adjacent waters, 
there would yet remain in duplicate that 
which constitutes the more unique and 
that which typifies the whole of this won- 
derful country. 
This is true of its tribal races and 
mixed descendants, of the hardy pioneers 
in well-governed settlements, where with 
the best of harbors, a railroad leading to 
the interior, steamships and cable lines 
to the outer world, they enjoy nearly all 
the advantages of modern civilization. 
It is true, too, of the forests, herbage, 
wild fruits and flowers, the game and 
commercial fish, the native and migra- 
