GAME OF THE KENAI PENINSULA, ALASKA 
493 
an additional supply of meat for visitors 
and natives, besides largely decreasing 
the drain upon the moose and sheep. 
On several occasions it has been sug- 
gested that the peninsula was just the 
place to establish a national park, but its 
remoteness and the need of developing 
such resorts nearer home make such a 
plan impracticable at the present time. 
Neither should this country be set aside 
as a permanent game refuge, because the 
narrow base connecting it with the main 
shore is traversed by a great glacier, 
practically cutting off the egress of the 
animals, and it thus lacks the essential 
prerequisite of every such refuge, where 
the surplus animals should have a chance 
to populate the surrounding territory. 
The district, defined on the map fac- 
ing page 428, is. the most accessible and 
probably the most populated sheep range 
on the continent. Here on a few of the 
more northerly mountains I saw some 
500 sheep, and here, too, is the summer 
range of many moose and the home of 
the great brown bear. In many other 
localities big game is plentiful, and it 
may prove on investigation that in the 
great stretch of unexplored mountains 
facing Prince William Sound there are 
white mountain goats and some speci- 
mens of the glacier bears. 
THE GREAT ICE-CAP 
The sheep country, between Skilak 
and Tustumena lakes, is walled in on the 
east by an immense ice field, the history 
of which has never been written, and 
only of late has its true character been 
determined. Marked on the older maps 
as the Kenai Glacier, it is in reality a 
great ice-cap, probably tmsurpassed on 
the northern continent except by that of 
Greenland and the well-known Malaspina 
ice field at the base of Mount Saint Elias. 
Unlike a true glacier — created by ice 
streams flowing from the higher lateral 
valleys — this great ridge of ice, towering 
4,000 feet above the sea, fills the lower 
valleys with hundreds of glaciers, some 
of which are active and still topple great 
masses of ice into Resurrection Bay, 
while others are stationary, or receding, 
but contributing to the flow of nearly all 
the streams originating south of Skilak 
Lake. 
No one has ever crossed it at the 
widest point, and no one has ever trav- 
eled its entire length. Computations 
from various sources show this ice field 
to be 70 miles in length with a maximum 
width of 20 miles. 
Whether originally formed by local 
precipitation, now insufficient to maintain 
its present bulk, or whether this ice ridge 
is a great keel of a mighty ice field which 
once bore down upon the peninsula, is a 
problem for the geologist rather than the 
casual visitor. 
The first week in August Skilak Lake 
suddenly rose a foot in a single night. 
and the only explanation was that the 
ice stream below the cap had become 
clogged for days and, when the pressure 
became too great, burst its bonds. The 
milky and turbid condition of the lake 
corroborated this view. 
The weather conditions during the trip 
were most favorable for game, although 
we were undoubtedly fortunate in being 
there during an unusual season. 
In 55 days rain fell during 19 hours — 
practically a drouth. We were wind- 
bound three days and experienced a num- 
ber of violent squalls lasting an hour or 
so. There were three entirely cloudy 
days and half a dozen partly so. This 
resulted in unusually high water in all 
the mountain streams — an anomaly dur- 
ing dry weather further south, where 
rain and not melting snowbanks main- 
tained the streams. As a secondary re- 
sult the mosquitoes were scarce, with the 
swamps dry ; but the black flies, beginning 
in September, were the worst I ever saw, 
nearly devouring the men alive as they 
toiled at the tracking line on the return 
up the Kenai River. 
The maximum heat the last two weeks 
in July was 87°, on the 19th instant, and 
the minimum 40°, on the night of the 
2 1 St. The average maximum for that 
period was 70° and the average minimum 
45°. 5. In August the maximum was 83°, 
on the 7th instant, and the minimum 32°, 
on the night of the loth. The average 
maximum for the month was 69°. 2, and 
the average minimum 46°. 5. The first 
