i6 



with birds during the breeding season, while the shallows on 

 the north are alive with small fishes and crustaceans. 



The Kenai Mountains extend nearly due east and west 

 along the southern side of the Kenai Peninsula (formed by 

 Cook's Inlet on the north and the Pacific Ocean on the south) 

 and their base is covered with a dense growth of spruce and 

 Cottonwood. 



The country between the mountains and inlet is a low table- 

 land, seldom attaining an altitude exceeding twelve hundred 

 feet. In most places it is covered with a dense growth of 

 grass, which in favorable localities reaches between seven and 

 eight feet in height. This grass is so thick and rank that all 

 signs of the ground are obliterated for miles, the dead grass 

 of former years having formed a compact mass several feet 

 in thickness. Spruce, birch and Cottonwood are abundant 

 along the steep hillsides and ravines, but will eventually be 

 crowded out by the ever-present grass, which thrives quite 

 as well in the deep shade as in the open. Extensive patches 

 of berries are to be found, including the red raspberry and red 

 and black currant, the former two being of the finest quality. 

 The highest ridges of this tableland are covered with a low 

 scrub willow, with an occasional open patch of moss and 

 muskeg tundra. It is there the Moose winters, as the willow 

 is its principal food. Ptarmigan also repair to open patches 

 where an abundance of blueberries and similar food may be 

 obtained during the winter. 



The Kenai Mountains and the tableland are separated by a 

 low, wide valley, through which winds Sheep Creek, having 

 its source in the extensive glaciers about thirty miles from 

 the head of Chugachik Bay, into which it empties its waters. 

 It is a very turbulent stream and constantly changes its 

 course by cutting into the low banks of glacial sand and 

 gravel, undermining trees and forming extensive log-jams on 

 the shallows. As may be imagined, these jams, together with 

 innumerable snags and ever-present quicksands, make the 



