IN A TRAPPER S CAMP : ALASKA 



Part of a winter's catch, consisting of 74 lynxes (hung in bunches), eight foxes (one 

 silver, four cross, three red) ; also (hung in center) 54 rabbits, shot in 45 minutes by three 

 rifles while driving through the willows on an island during the winter. 



about 100 miles away from the new park, 

 and the largest settlement in the interior, 

 is the destination of most of the wild 

 meat killed on the north side of the 

 Alaska Range. The mountains just south 

 of Fairbanks and east of Nenana River 

 offered a convenient field for the market 

 hunter, and for years large numbers of 

 mountain sheep were killed there for the 

 Fairbanks market. 



THE POT-HUNTERS' DESTRUCTIVE TOLE 



Within the last few years, however, the 

 sheep herds in the nearer mountains have 

 become so depleted that the hunter has 

 been forced to go constantly farther from 

 his market, and now finds the most satis- 

 factory hunting ground within the limits 

 of the proposed reserve. 



I talked with several men who take 

 sheep meat to Fairbanks for sale, and one 

 of them estimated that each winter for 

 the last three years from 1,500 to 2,000 

 sheep have been taken from the basin of 

 Toklat and Teklanika rivers. Only a 

 part of these reaches Fairbanks, for the 



sled dogs must be fed during the hunt 

 and on the trail, and some hunters leave 

 behind all but the choicest hind quarters. 



It can be readily seen that slaughter on 

 such a scale can last only a short time, 

 until the game here, too, has been nearly 

 exterminated. The sheep, being of 

 choicest flavor, are taken first, but the 

 moose and caribou will not escape after 

 the sheep become harder to get. 



The absence of a supply of wild meat 

 in Fairbanks and other interior towns 

 will work no hardship on the residents, 

 for there is already a Avell-established 

 trade in refrigerated domestic meat, and 

 the dealers will readily supply all the 

 fresh meat for which there is a demand, 

 and at a cost little, if any, above that 

 charged by the market hunters for game. 



A BIG-GAME PARADISE 1 5 MILES FROM A 

 RAILROAD 



Such are the conditions today, even in 

 a region so difficult of access. How much 

 more rapidly will the game disappear 

 when the railroad is completed to a point 



81 



