SOME ALASKAN BIG GAME 
A Rich Field for Hardy Sportsmen 
BY R. W. STONE, U. S. G. S. 
Published by Permission of the Director of the U. S. Geological Survey 
ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 
FEW casual observa- 
tions regarding wood- 
land caribou and other 
large game in the in- 
terior of Alaska are 
offered here mainly for 
the purpose of present- 
ing the accompanying 
photographs. The 
writer was in the region 
north of Fairbanks, on 
the Tanana River,and 
between Circle City 
and Fort Hamlin, on 
the Yukon, for three months during the sum- 
mer of 1905, with a United States Geological 
Survey party. 
The region between the Yukon and 
Tanana rivers is mountainous, ranging in 
elevation from 700 to 5,000 feet. It is lightly 
timbered with spruce up to about 2,000 feet, 
the upper parts of the ridges being covered 
with buck brush (scrub birch), grass, nigger- 
heads and caribou moss. Of the latter there 
is a great abundance. The highest ridges 
are rocky and impassable for horses. 
During the latter part of June two solitary 
bull caribou were seen in the Crazy Moun- 
tains west of Circle City, and early in July a 
bull, cow and calf in the same locality. 
Moose signs were found along all the little 
streams, but none was fresh. Farther west, 
after crossing Preacher Creek the middle of 
July, it soon became an almost daily occur- 
rence to see from one to fifty caribou, and 
for two months we were not out of fresh 
meat. 
Lone caribou at times were very inquisi- 
tive, following a single man or circling 
around the packtrain with evident curiosity. 
One day while eating lunch alone on a 

mountainside two young bulls approached 
within a hundred yards, and for twenty 
minutes kept advancing and retreating, cau- 
tious but curious. On another day the pack- 
train met a drove of about ninety face to 
face on the crest of a narrow ridge. To 
our surprise the caribou showed inten- 
tions of contesting the right of way. The 
leaders assumed defiant attitudes, spread 
their forelegs and lowered their antlers 
in a threatening manner, as if ready to 
fight. Others moved around to the sides 
of the packtrain and inspected our horses, 
so close that they could have been roped 
with a short lariat. Suddenly, however, 
they took fright, wheeled and went back the 
way they came. 
One afternoon two of us with two horses 
passed around the edge of a drove number- 
ing about 150, without their being fright- 
ened. The cows with their calves, only a few 
weeks old, were scattered over the hillside, 
while most of the bulls were up the slope, 
near the top of the ridge. To have shot a 
caribou on that hillside would have been 
much like going into a farmer’s pasture and 
killing one of his dairy herd. Another drove 
of about the same size, on the other side of 
the valley, got our wind and took to their 
heels. 
The accompanying photographs were 
made the latter part of July near the head 
of Preacher Creek, sixty miles northeast of 
Fairbanks. While traveling along the crest 
of a ridge one morning I saw several caribou 
ahead and coming my way. They were 
moving slowly, grazing as they came, and 
had not seen me. I sat down, got out my 
camera and waited. In a few minutes the 
leader came along. I shouted to make him 
look up and then pressed the bulb, But he 
