THE BACKGROUND 5 



survey of Grinnell (1900) and the archeological exploration of Gid- 

 dings (1952) along the forested part of the Kobuk River. Olaus 

 Murie (1928) had reported on some of the birds which he found along 

 the Koyukuk and Alatna Eivers, but otherwise the arctic interior of 

 Alaska and Yukon was biologically unexplored. 



It was the necessity to obtain more animals that first sent some of 

 us on short trips inland from Barrow. Gradually the scope of these 

 trips increased, but the distribution and habits of the animals were 

 unfamiliar, and without more information about their environment 

 we were in a poor state for estimating the adaptive significance of 

 their physiological processes. At first I could not imagine by what 

 means we could acquire the necessary comprehensive information about 

 biological conditions in the area of interior Alaska for 300 miles north 

 of the arctic circle and ranging 700 miles eastward from Cape Lisburne 

 to the Mackenzie Delta. 



Fortunately Sig Wien, president of Wien Alaska Airways, was 

 then often at Barrow, and because he had been flying over arctic 

 Alaska for a number of years he thoroughly understood the features of 

 the country. Tom Brower, a native and merchant of Barrow was 

 also a good adviser, for Tom, his eminent father, Charles, and his 

 brothers knew the arctic coast and its adjacent interior. He could 

 view the country as a naturalist of experience, for his family was 

 credited by Bailey (1948) with making known 63 of the 153 species 

 of birds recorded from Barrow. To Wien and Brower the key to the 

 faunal situation in arctic Alaska appeared likely to be found in the 

 mountains of the Brooks Range. Bailey (1948, p. 177) expresses 

 Brower's view: "He stated that there is a definite migration route 

 over the Endicott Mountains and down the Colville, and that many 

 water birds use this route to and from the eastern arctic coast." 



We decided upon the system of passes about Anaktuvuk as the 

 most favorable starting location for several reasons. The several 

 passes that interconnect in that region constitute the primary system 

 of easy northward passage of the Brooks Range overland or for low- 

 powered aircraft west of the Canadian border and the air transport 

 route to the arctic coast follows Anaktuvuk Pass (fig. 1), through 

 which low-powered aircraft in contact flight can guide upon a well 

 defined valley with ground elevations below 2,500 feet. In this com- 

 plex of passes, lives a small community of inland Eskimos, who were 

 said by Wien to know thoroughly the terrain and the wild life of 

 their native mountains. His estimate of these people gave us reason 

 to think that with their aid we might make a biological survey in an 

 area where to establish our own bases and to travel unguided would 

 require impossible expeditionary effort in time and expense. 



I decided to utilize my interest in birds for developing a picture 



