GAME OF THE KENAI PENINSULA, ALASKA 



49.: 



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 unsurpassed 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, 

 lut 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 



